Lisa Frankenstein

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Well, this was an interesting experiment, to say the least. The thing is, I can't imagine upon seeing this that it was ever gonna really pull people in. The only audience this could really be aimed at is the same audience that liked the '93 film 'My Boyfriend's Back' and are aiming to find a little nostalgia from the era. Even though this is a film that plays more on 80's nostalgia, let's not forget that for a while there, the 80s bled over into the 90s, and 'My Boyfriend's Back' is a good indicator of that. Regardless, it's no surprise at all to me that this bombed.

Another potential draw to the film would be writer Diablo Cody, who certainly has her own cult audience in the palm of her hand (just like I'm in Edgar Wright's hand, to be perfectly fair), but I'd argue that they will be the ones to really take something away from this as opposed to someone like me, who's admittedly indifferent to Cody. I think this was a weird route to take in order to create something fresh for our nostalgia, much like 'Stranger Things' has managed to do, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me remember some of those oddball one-off dark comedy films from the late 80s/early 90s.

The film centres on introverted "weirdo", Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) whose mother was violently murdered some time prior to the film's events, and she's still got it on her mind. Her father, Dale (Joe Chrest) remarries a "wicked stepmother" type named Janet (Carla Gugino) who's terrible towards Lisa, but she brings her daughter, Taffy (Liza Soberano) into the mix who befriends Lisa as her new stepsister, and makes attempts to get her out of the house, including going to a house party where everything sort of kicks off involving, fair warning, a scene of her drink being spiked with something pretty heavy.

In the process of tripping balls, Lisa heads to a cemetery that she frequently visits in her own time, speaking one-on-one with the grave of a young Victorian era man whose name we never get. In her depressed and drugged state, she wishes she "was with him" (as in dead), but the magic wish comes true in a different way, in which the young man comes back in a zombie state (Cole Sprouse) and seeks Lisa out, eventually resulting in the classic scenario of hiding a person or thing from the rest of the family and society, which has been done time and time again, but I will say this does a few different things with it.

Bearing in mind that this is, in part, a horror movie, a lot of that comes from this idea that other people's body parts can be sewn onto the zombie guy, then, by way of a broken tanning bed, the body part in question merges with him making him more and more fully human every time. It's a cool idea, but as one can imagine, some of it manages to get kinda low-brow and is likely to make one's eyes roll. With that said, and without spoilers, I'll offer fair warning right now that the film gets incredibly weird and creepy, and one will have to look past some things to appreciate the ending.

My thoughts on the film as a whole are a bit convoluted. On the negative end of things, I can't imagine who was asking for such a project, the film gets suggestively weird, even for me, who generally embraces weird, and in all honesty, this isn't gonna be something I remember much of by the end of the year. But some positives include some humorous dialogue and performances, a touch of renewed nostalgia, and the acting makes it feel like a film lost in time. If this was shown back in the early 90s, it would probably fit in pretty well.

I would say to a general audience that one is gonna have to accept what the film is trying to call back to in order to fully appreciate it. You're also gonna have to be able to open your mind quite a bit to accept a few things here and there. I came out of this with a certain appreciation for what it did, but at the same time, it's really nothing special. At best, it's a decent call-back to an era. At worst, it's something predictable we've seen again and again. It's nothing I'd say is terrible, or even that bad, but it's pretty out there, so proceed with an open mind if you wanna enjoy it at all.

3/5

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