Few screenwriters working today have the immediate name recognition of Diablo Cody. Initially drawing backlash after she burst onto the scene with the Oscar-winning script for Juno, the general opinion of Cody has mellowed in the years since. Thankfully, the troublesome, often nasty, but consistently sympathetic women she writes haven’t mellowed out one bit. The protagonist of the 80’s horror-comedy homage Lisa Frankenstein, Cody’s latest project, fits squarely within the writer’s stable of unrepentantly fucked up ladies.
High schooler Lisa Swallows (a marvelously unhinged Kathryn Newton) struggles to process the traumatic death of her mother. Everyone around her practically begs her to move on, but she remains withdrawn, moody, and possibly mentally unwell. Nothing can bring her out of her shell. That is until a bolt of lightning reanimates the corpse of a 19th-century man who desperately wants to impress her. The Creature (Cole Sprouse) can’t speak, so he can’t woo Lisa with words. Instead, he murders anyone who mistreats her. In return, Lisa takes symbolic body parts from their victims to restore the Creature’s decayed ones, thereby creating her ideal boyfriend.
Lisa Frankenstein is a gender-swapped Weird Science, or maybe it’s what a young Tim Burton would have made if told to reimagine Bonnie and Clyde for the teenage goth set. Heathers also feels like a major reference point, although Newton’s presence here is more Helena Bonham-Carter than Winona Ryder. First-time director Zelda Williams brings a visual flair to the proceedings, even if none of the film’s images quite outdo any of their influences. Williams also struggles at times to reconcile the script’s ever-shifting tone. One imagines that a more seasoned director could have kept the comedy sharper and wrangled in some of the more cartoonish performances (I’m looking at you, Carla Gugino).
The dynamic between Lisa and the Creature, however, is so uncompromisingly unconventional that it’s easy to dismiss any other quibbles. The script refuses to soften or romanticize Lisa’s deeply weird and selfish desires. Sexually, Lisa is an unambiguous monster fucker and/or necrophiliac. She clearly finds pleasure in corporeally assembling her undead lover. It’s rare for any teen paranormal romance to let its freak flag fly quite like this one does, which makes Lisa’s PG-13 safe but fairly frank kinkiness all the more delightful. Emotionally, the film is kind of a love story, I guess, if we suppose that the Creature might truly be in love with Lisa. But Lisa couldn’t care less about who the Creature was before he died. Because of his silence, she can project any number of motivations onto his actions just as easily as she can graft her hunky crush’s dick onto his body. Lisa uses the Creature to get revenge and get off, and eventually she asks him to kill her–finally fulfilling her ultimate, suicidal desire.
Lisa Frankenstein may not have immediately found its audience when it came out last Valentine’s Day, but it deserves instant admission into the (Goth) Girl Pervert coming-of-age canon.
