From Jeremy Kibler

Lisa Frankenstein might just be the most adorable romantic comedy about “when corpse meets girl.” It’s morbid but goofy, weird, and sweet, so it must be from the delightful penmanship of Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body). Director Zelda Williams (Robin’s daughter) makes her auspicious feature debut, bringing Cody’s tonally specific and verbally witty script to life and fusing comedy, horror, and romance. The blending of tones can be a difficult rope to walk, but it makes for a much more special brew. Heathers meets Weird Science (only with a smelly-teared stud from the 1800s), Lisa Frankenstein is one of a kind.

After her mother’s murder and her dad remarrying, teenage outcast Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is most comfortable when hanging out in Bachelor’s Grove, the local cemetery. The only boy she has eyes on happens to live there, and he’s a piano-playing Victorian man (Cole Sprouse). When she tends his grave, Lisa wishes to be with him. Sure enough, a bolt of lightning strikes the deceased man’s tombstone and reanimates him. Lisa keeps her new man under wraps from her family, including stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano) and horrible stepmom Janet (Carla Gugino). With a little help from a tanning bed in the garage, Lisa then tries giving this corpse a makeover with . . . body parts from others who won’t be missed. 

With an earnestness rather than an ironic nudge and wink, Lisa Frankenstein not only captures the fads of big-haired 1989. It also feels like a high-concept ‘80s-style comedy, complete with a clothing montage, in the way Lisa keeps “Creature” (as the corpse is credited) hidden in her closet. Cody’s script, however, is not so cookie-cutter and runs with a darkly funny, dementedly romantic twinkle in its eye. 

Lisa is the little misunderstood weirdo in everyone. Even when the steps she takes with Creature cross into necrophilia and murder, she’s someone we still relate to in terms of the loneliness Lisa feels in her grief. Kathryn Newton is effervescent and engaging as Lisa, and what she does with a line reading, a facial expression, and her body language is always unexpected and inspired. As “Creature,” Cole Sprouse gives a mute, physically precise performance, clearly channelling the pioneers of the silent era but somehow finding an actual connection with Newton. Sweet, slyly funny newcomer Liza Soberano is a major standout, never playing Taffy purely as a mean girl but as a protective stepsister to Lisa. Finally, the invaluable Carla Gugino brings delicious “Evil Stepmother” energy to “intuitive person” Janet without fully tipping into caricature.

PG-13 or not, Lisa Frankenstein never feels watered-down to appease teenyboppers. It’s offbeat and dorky in the best way possible and so visually imaginative on occasion that it puts some $200-million movies to shame. The production design and costume design are both fabulous, and it’s a shrewd touch that Lisa’s clothing style evolves from Molly Ringwald to Madonna chic once her dream boy comes back from the dead. The beautifully animated credit sequence that the film opens with even instantly reminds of vintage Tim Burton (like, say, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie). 

From a well-placed reference to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to a bedroom poster of Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon, the film wears its cinematic knowledge on its sleeve alongside its beating heart. On the music side, the soundtrack is perfectly curated with a cover of REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” and a slowed-down reworking of “I Can See Clearly Now” by Elise McQueen. The use of Jeffrey Osborne’s “On the Wings of Love” is also unprecedented (and bloody). 

Horror is a wide-open playground for more than just scares, and while it’s never meant to frighten, Lisa Frankenstein is a genre fan’s kind of romance. For a film that commits to the daring inevitability of where a love story like this should go, the final shot does not seem to land as humorously or as romantically as one might have hoped; it’s like a weak punchline to a really strong joke. Then again, why carp when everything else hits just right? My Boyfriend’s Back and Warm Bodies might as well dig up a new burial plot because Lisa Frankenstein is a freshly imagined gem for the lovesick freaks.

Rating: 4/5

Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters on February 9, 2024. 

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