Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin) directs this agreeably disagreeable comedy horror, but many will see the true auteur as Diablo Cody, its writer. There are familial tendrils between this and her screenplay for Jennifer’s Body – rediscovered after flopping in 2009 – but Lisa Frankenstein is even rougher, broader and gnarlier. That is a good thing and a bad thing. There is a sense throughout of good pals inviting us into their prank. For most of the time one is happy to play along, even as one craves a little more polish.
We are very much in the world of the 1980s high-school comedy. Lisa Swallows is living in generic suburbia after the horrific murder of her mother. Dad is timid Joe Chrest. Stepmom is appalling Carla Gugino. The Cinderella vibe is disrupted slightly by casting Liza Soberano as a nice, pretty – though utterly dim – stepsister. Following an incidence of sexual abuse at a party, Lisa makes her way to the local graveyard, where she communes with a deceased Victorian romantic. Lightning strikes. He rises from the grave and becomes her miserable companion.
The premise is a bit of a mess. Lisa Frankenstein does not really take on the role of Mary Shelley’s eponymous protagonist. The Creature here is not manufactured but summoned up largely whole. She does end up practising rudimentary surgery on bits (guess which?) of his mangy body. But he is more of a zombie than a man-made man. Right?
No matter. Cody and her team have opened up the possibility for humorous explorations of 1980s mores and robust variations on the horrors of adolescence. “I have the Cure,” Lisa says to her festering beau as fingers fall off. “Oh no. Not that type of cure. They can’t make you better. I mean they can, but emotionally.” The version of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight the Feeling, with Creature on piano, feels like this century’s take on Peter Boyle singing Puttin’ on the Ritz at the close of Young Frankenstein. (Chillingly, the Irving Berlin song arrived about as many years before the Mel Brooks film as did the power ballad before Lisa Frankenstein.)
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All of which is just about fun enough to sustain 101 clattering, dusty, dimly lit minutes. Reviews will be mixed. But it has every chance of being resurrected as a cult classic.
Lisa Frankenstein opens on Friday, March 1st
