Lisa Frankenstein

by Philip Price

Photo: Focus Features

Director: Zelda Williams 
Starring: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse & Liza Soberano 
Rated: PG-13 (violent content, bloody images, sexual material & assault, teen drinking & drug content)
Runtime: 1 hour & 41 minutes

​In 2010 Entertainment Weekly editor Kate Ward called M. Night Shyamalan’s 2008 film, “The Happening,” the “funniest movie about mass death I had ever seen.” Cut to 14 years later and “Lisa Frankenstein” may be the funniest movie about murder I’ve ever seen. The difference? The humor in Zelda Williams' (daughter of Robin) directorial debut is completely intentional. Even better is the fact the wacky tone and slasher-centric storylines were completely unexpected from a movie sold as a YA love story between a modern girl and a long deceased dude about how they could never truly be together. Diablo Cody, the writer of “Juno” and “Jennifer’s Body,” has cultivated a specific enough brand one could guess the tone from simply hearing the premise, but while this Tim Burton-inspired love story initially settles us into its suburban expressionism by way of the more gothic tendencies of its heroine, it completely turns itself over at the halfway mark and becomes all the more absurd and exciting for it.

It's not hard to see this catching on down the road (I was the only person in my 7:30 showing on opening night) whether it be on streaming or somewhere like FreeForm (it's a great Friday night FreeForm movie for 15-year-olds) from the perfect title screen, a truly magnificent Kathryn Newton, to the very specific and patterned way in which the dialogue and blocking compliment the tone and humor it is all working together yet somehow isn't reaching peak performance level. It's not overstimulating, it's not trying too hard as Isabella Summers’ original score is as sparse as it is whimsically melancholy, and the film's casual nature contrasts nicely with its kooky plot devices. What's not appealing, right? One would be forgiven for thinking a film with all of this going for it would be an automatic member of the "Timeless Sleepover Movies" club yet there is something at the center that restricts it from feeling complete; an obvious Frankenstein-esque story where the parts are ironically greater than the sum.

There's so much to like about this though, whether it be Cole Sprouse (giving a nearly wordless performance) and his stinky green tears or Carla Gugino just having an absolute blast as well as breakout Liza Soberano who plays Newton's supportive yet totally superficial stepsister Taffy that it's impossible to hold what doesn't work about the film against what does. If nothing else, this marks Williams as having real potential once she works out how to better channel inspiration into motivation and flesh out something she can truly call her own. The ability to mix the glib with the more earnest aspects of Cody's screenplay is a bigger testament to Williams and her cast’s talent than it might initially seem but is ultimately the key to what holds this creature together even if it sometimes seems as if it's only by a string - literally and metaphorically.