Review: 'Lisa Frankenstein' is Dead on Arrival

"Lisa Frankenstein" is an '80s-style teen horror comedy with two things going for it. One is Kathryn Newton as the titular Lisa, a big-haired high school goth girl with an angel smile and a taste for the undead. The other is Liza Soberano, who brings a stabilizing warmth to this somewhat scattered picture as Lisa's cheerleading step-sister, Taffy.

Given the movie's notable provenance -- script by Diablo Cody, score by Isabella Summers of Florence and the Machine -- you'd hope there would be more to it. But the director, Zelda Williams, hasn't found a solid comic through-line for the story, so some of the scenes flounder while awaiting a payoff that never quite arrives. The picture never builds; it wallows. (Also, for what it's worth, the Frankenstein connection of the title is muddled. As the movie begins, we see Lisa at a "Plan 9"-ish cemetery -- her favorite hangout -- making a rubbing from a headstone upon which the name Frankenstein is chiseled. Nit-pickers may wonder how the mad Swiss scientist of Mary Shelley's horror classic came to be buried near an unnamed American suburb, but the question is never addressed. Probably because who really cares ... including me, to be honest.)

The story we do get is that Lisa Swallows (her real name, which would have fit right into a vintage teen sex comedy) was traumatized by witnessing the slaughter of her mother in their own home by a knife-wielding maniac straight out of a period slasher flick. (The movie is set in 1989, a decade after John Carpenter's "Halloween" took the slasher aesthetic mainstream.) Lisa's father (Joe Chrest) remarried, saddling Lisa with a waspish stepmother named Janet (Carla Gugino, exuberantly overacting) and her daughter Taffy, who's actually a pretty good egg. Now a high-school senior, Lisa, in her poufy black tulle frocks and classroom shades, is alienated from just about all of her peers -- except maybe Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), the editor of the school lit mag, who likes Lisa's poetry, and a horny, ill-fated nerd named Doug (Bryce Romero).

Late one stormy night, we see a dagger of lightning striking Lisa's cemetery, bringing to life the corpse of a handsome, long-dead classical musician whose statue she fancies. This adds another character to the story -- and another problem to the movie. "The Creature" (as he's called in the credits) has no dialogue, and as played by Cole Sprouse ("Riverdale"), no effective way to compel our attention beyond broadly grunting and stumbling around, very much in the manner of Vincent D'Onofrio's bug-infested farmer in the first "Men in Black" movie (although D'Onofrio, whose character could talk, sort of, was able to be more expressive). The most amusing thing in this movie is Lisa's means of keeping her dead sweetie on his feet -- a quick bake in a short-circuiting sunbed does the trick.

The picture is fully stocked with '80s pop signifiers: a Violent Femmes T-shirt, a clip from "Day of the Dead" on a TV, and familiar songs by the Pixies, Galaxie 500, Echo and the Bunnymen, and, inevitably, the long-gone Brit band When in Rome (with "The Promise," what else). But none of this aural nostalgia delivers what the movie really needs, which is more period atmosphere, and the rollicking spirit of, say, an old Cyndi Lauper album cover. Another drawback is the picture's PG-13 rating, which keeps a lid on any really outrageous horror flourishes. True, there's a penis-hatcheting that will be an attention-grabber for some viewers, but that's about it.

The most striking thing about this movie -- the only striking thing -- is that it was written by the same person who created the wonderful "Jennifer's Body," a movie that's finally being reevaluated by errant critics, 15 years after its release. It's hard to imagine any such second chance ever being accorded the dull and lifeless "Lisa Frankenstein."

========

Kurt Loder is the film critic for Reason Online. To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

----