Lisa Frankenstein, directed by Zelda Williams and starring Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse, is wild, weird, and a wicked fun time.
A misunderstood teenager (Kathryn Newton) and a reanimated Victorian corpse (Cole Sprouse) embark on a murderous journey together to find love, happiness, and a few missing body parts.
The 80s vibe was an interesting choice; this film does a great job capturing the fun of the ending years of the decade. It conveys the energy, the wild fashions, the big hair, and all the outdated cars, homes, and technology to pull it off which was perfect to dampen the darker tones of the movie, giving it that John Hughes version of an occult.
The opening credits were a charming introduction. It’s animated and holds a silhouette style of art that reminds me of some favorite games with a Tim Burton animation that is haunting. It’s a small like, but still worth mentioning.
This cast accomplishes a lot in handling this strange and disturbing content. Cole Sprouse was quite dynamic for not having anything dialogue throughout the film. Sprouse uses body acting and grunting as he struts, lumbers, and does other stuff to bounce off of Lisa’s actions, and is very fun to watch. Kathryn Newton is the star though as the ferry woman with this odd dance on death. All the changes her character goes through during the movie require a lot of versatility, and she managed to pull it off with each level. Her delivery of lines was amazing and the way she captures those dark and methodical movements all add up to become the “modern” Frankenstein role they were going for.
Much like the concept of Frankenstein, the comedy in the film blends in with some of the darker elements and becomes this electric mix that just works for the direction they took this film. Ignorance and stupidity from many of the characters offers that simple level of lightness to break up some of the darker roles. Once you get into those darker elements, these puns, jabs, and sarcasm helps add that dryer sense of humor to spice things up. They not quite cross into the full horror, but it does provide audiences with enough shock factor and dark reflections to keep things engaging.
The writing is very clever and finds ways to blend a lot of things into one movie. Lisa Frankenstein is a testament to writer Diablo Cody’s work; its a mash-up of satire to parody the classics, but adds that new age twist and drama to appear to modern audiences. Its not just a darker thriller like the trailers made it out to be, but instead its an intriguing twist on the Frankenstein story.
Much of story comes down to the character development. Lisa in particular has a lot to unpack in the film, which is the essential drive into the fractured mind that is stuck between artistic brilliance, teenage lust, and potential insanity. The creature holds so many qualities and unravels his tightly held feelings while gradually introducing them with each new person that meets him. This is the odd fascination that pulls everything together, and should be appealing to the audience.
Overall, Lisa Frankenstein is weird, dark, and surprisingly intriguing on many levels. Cody’s writing paired with William’s direction manages to capture the charm of Tim Burton horror, warping the story of Frankenstein to a fun level, and making it relevant for today’s issues. With a strong cast and even stronger production value helps bring things to life and captures the spirit of the 80s. The film handles a lot of advanced concepts in a fun way and does its best to blend so many styles and elements to achieve something I wasn’t expecting. However, the film does veer into the niche audience levels and ventures into that CW type of drama that feels more like fan fiction which causes it to lose much of its potential, but it’s still worth a trip to the theater.
Lisa Frankenstein is now playing in theaters.
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