A Grave Problem

Film: Lisa Frankenstein
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

I was born in the late ‘60s, which means that I am a child of the ‘80s. Like most of Gen-X, I came of age with movies like The Breakfast Club. That said, those of us who liked things darker with a touch of comedy had two movies that defined a large part of who we were. Those are Beetlejuice and Heathers. Both of these movies explored some dark territory (the second more than the first) and also came with a good number of laughs. While there have been some fun horror comedies since then as well as horror romances, none really feels like it has picked up the mantle of those films like Lisa Frankenstein. It’s not a coincidence that Lisa Frankenstein takes place in 1989, the year after Beetlejuice came out and the same year the Heathers did.

In 1989, unfortunately-named goth girl Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is dealing with moving in her senior year of high school, a step-mother (Carla Gugino) who is awful to her, a bubbly cheerleader step-sister named Taffy (Liza Soberano), and the fact that a couple years previously, her mother was murdered by an axe-wielding maniac. Essentially friendless and mired in an unrequited crush with the editor of the school literary magazine, Lisa spends a lot of her time like any goth in an abandoned cemetery. One of the graves, that of a young man, is her favorite, and she frequently leaves him trinkets and talks to him.

One night, she and Taffy head to a party where Lisa is slipped a spiked drink. She eventually wind up back in her favorite abandoned cemetery where she again speaks to her favorite tombstone. It turns out that he was jilted by his love 150 years previously and then killed by a lightning strike. Well, movie logic dictates that when lightning strikes his grave, he is resurrected, and he naturally seeks Lisa out.

His arrival is naturally a shock, but eventually Lisa figures out who he is. And, almost despite herself, she bonds with the resurrected man, who is never really given a name in the film—he’s referred to exclusively as “The Creature” (Cole Sprouse). He can’t talk, and even with a shower he doesn’t clean up terribly well. He’s also missing a few body parts that have rotted off in the grave. The middle section of the film is essentially the Creature and Lisa committing a few murders to get him the body parts he needs. What we learn is that by using Tammy’s defective tanning bed, they can get those new body parts to attach permanently to him. Each time he attaches a new part, he also gets a little less undead looking.

Honestly, Lisa Frankenstein is one of those films that appears to be destined to become a cult hit, the sort of thing that will attract a very specific, but rabidly passionate fanbase. It doesn’t hurt that this is director Zelda Williams’s feature-length directorial debut. It’s one of those films that is more mature from the director’s standpoint than her experience would dictate. That’s kind of a shame. The critical consensus of this is that it’s middle of the road, but there is a good deal of fan support for it, which seems to suggest that this will end up as a cult favorite.

One of the things that makes Lisa Frankenstein really work is that the relationship between Lisa and the Creature seems genuine. It also follows so much of the 1980s teen rom-com pattern of the main character having a crush on someone and not seeing the value of the best friend who is right in front of them the whole movie. It’s simply that in this movie, the best friend happens to have been dead for 150 years.

I also like the character of Taffy quite a bit. It’s a cliché to make Taffy not only dumb and concerned only with cheerleading, but to make her a mean girl, and Lisa Frankenstein pulls a switch. Taffy, aside from a pivotal moment at the end of the second act, is actually rather sweet. Just as Lisa is stuck with her, Taffy, the popular, outgoing socialite, is stuck with Lisa, and she really seems determined to not only make the best of it, but to bring Lisa into her world.

Honestly, I like almost all of the choices here. There are some unexplained plot holes (the Creature knows how to drive a car, for instance), but most of them I am happy to overlook. I don’t always love Diablo Cody’s screenplays as much as I’m supposed to. Jennifer’s Body is good, not great, and Juno is wildly overrated. But this one? This one she got mostly right.

Why to watch Lisa Frankenstein: It’s Heathers meets Beetlejuice.
Why not to watch: This is not going to be appreciated for a few more years.