‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Review: An Unlikely, Unbelievable Tale of Death-Transcending Love

This review contains minor spoilers.

Lisa hasn’t always had the best experience with home invasions — the first one left her mother brutally murdered. Thankfully, this time the intruder turns out to be a sexy, centuries-old Victorian man, who plunges her into an unlikely story of love, betrayal, and severed body parts.

“Lisa Frankenstein” is Zelda Williams’s feature-length directorial debut, with a screenplay by renowned writer Diablo Cody. The film follows the story of Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) and a Frankenstein-like creature (Cole Sprouse) as they become partners in crime. Lisa — a run-of-the-mill goth girl — is shy, misunderstood, traumatized from her mother’s death, and overlooked compared to her hot-yet-frustratingly-nice sister Taffy (Liza Soberano). A party leaves Lisa running to find solace in a young Victorian man’s grave that she frequently visits. Through fate and a crash of vivifying lightning, this creature — named “The Creature” — is brought back to life. They traverse family tensions, personal growth, and malicious murders for a love that transcends life and death, yet at times it’s difficult to truly believe the story on the screen beyond a surface-level rom-com.

Though the film has many feel-good moments, its tonal imbalance prevents it from being a truly laughable romance or petrifying horror piece. With half-finished worldbuilding and confusing plotlines, the biggest pitfall of “Lisa Frankenstein” is its underdevelopment. For instance, after only a small nudge from the creature — and a spicy clothing recommendation — Lisa boldly overcomes her crippling social timidity the very next day. Viewers are left with a myriad of compounding questions: Who is this Victorian man, and how does he even come back to life? Why was Lisa so fixated on his grave in the first place? How does this bug-infested, rotting-fleshed creature finally spark Lisa’s motivation to overcome her mother’s death?

The story is a whimsical, nonsensical tale that demands that the viewer suspend their disbelief too often. The death of Lisa’s diabolical stepmom, her lab partner-turned-sexual assaulter Doug, and her crush Michael Trenton — who ends up sleeping with Taffy — all feel unaddressed and downplayed with tacky interjections of humor. Had the film focused less on garnering laughs, its messages on love, life, and time would have been more substantial.

Throughout the film, Williams expertly employs scenes with centered compositions and large focal points to create a fairytale framing of Lisa’s world. The film plays actions in dramatic slow-motion, resulting in a melodramatic tone that clashes with events on screen — such as the murder of Lisa’s mother.

There is a lot of color play in the film — it’s largely pink, with electric cyan accents that pay tribute to design company Lisa Frank. Set in 1989, “Lisa Frankenstein” pays homage to cultural nostalgia through its colors, costume design, and score — which is filled with classics like “Lips Like Sugar” by Echo & the Bunnymen and “Head On” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. While the film also clearly alludes to cult-classics like “Heathers,” “Corpse Bride,” and, of course, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” it simply suffers from trying to incorporate too much into its plot.

The film ends with a zombified Lisa and her now-husband reading by the cemetery after she dies by suicide. Lisa’s complexity is never truly realized by this ending. Moments before her death, she tries to end Frankenstein’s life after his murderous spree traumatizes his sister — albeit unconvincingly, because throughout the film, Lisa never seems to feel any remorse for these deaths, instead justifying Taffy’s death to a crying Frankenstein by saying that they’ve “freed her.” Ultimately, the film suffers from sporadic and arbitrary moments like these.

“Lisa Frankenstein” does find redemption in the way its actors look at each other. Newton and Sprouse share an undeniable connection, especially during their intimate conversations on Lisa’s bed.

“They say time heals all wounds, but time is the wound,” Lisa confesses after her mother’s murder.

Frankenstein’s inability to talk after Lisa’s confession compels her to overcome her silence because, for the first time, someone is willing to listen. Taffy is also a refreshing character; she’s an ignorant, but truly kind-hearted “popular” girl, and in a touching scene, Lisa shares her whole-hearted love for Taffy despite catching her in bed with her longtime crush, Michael.

It’s at moments like these where “Lisa Frankenstein” leaves the audience craving more. As Frankenstein becomes more humanlike and handsome with each murder — from which Lisa obtains body parts that she sews on to him — it’s difficult to not root for these antiheroes.

Thus, despite — or perhaps due to — its bewildering nature, “Lisa Frankenstein” tells a tale that will linger long in the mind of its viewers after its showing. Its unanswered questions make for a mostly frustrating, but somewhat thrilling, film.