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Lisa Frankenstein Review: Would Have Worked Better As A Short Film

Lisa Frankenstein has the right pieces for a great short film but doesn't have enough to paint the full picture for a feature presentation.

Published Wed, 07 Feb 2024 10:02:08 -0600

by Kaitlyn Booth

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Article Summary

Lisa Frankenstein's feature-length falters, better as a short film.
Zelda Williams debuts with Diablo Cody's return to horror genre.
Strong performances from Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse.
Film's use of classic themes feels scattered and underdeveloped.

Lisa Frankenstein has a solid enough premise but seems to run out of ways to execute it well, and ultimately, it feels like the material is better suited to a short film than a feature-length production.

Director: Zelda Williams
Summary: A coming of RAGE love story about a teenager and her crush, who happens to be a corpse. After a set of horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a journey to find love, happiness – and a few missing body parts.

These days, it feels like everyone and their mother is currently doing either a Frankenstein adaptation or exploring some of the themes of the classic book. From big-screen adaptations by major directors that are now in the works to award-winning independent features that could bring home some Oscar gold, everyone is toying with the idea of what it means to be human and what it means to be alive. Lisa Frankenstein is not taking everything quite as seriously as other adaptations. This is the return of Diablo Cody to the horror genre after Jennifer's Body was unfairly maligned so many years ago, as well as the directing debut of Zelda Williams. While some seriously dark things do happen in Lisa Frankenstein, the bright colors offset the bloodstains as well as they can.

Unfortunately, Lisa Frankenstein is a film that feels like it runs out of steam far too quickly. For a movie that is just over an hour and forty minutes, it should not run out of ideas like it does. At first, you think you know where the film is going and who the "villain" is, and then it makes a pretty sharp left turn. Once you readjust to the new normal and the film seems to figure out what is going on, it again appears to lose interest in the concept it is telling. The story being teased in the trailers isn't exactly the one that is being presented in the film itself. The third act isn't what you think it will be and not exactly in a good way. There was a tighter story to be told here that seems much more suited to a short film or story.

That is in no way a slight against anyone in particular; plenty of ideas can't quite carry their way to feature length, and that's just the way it is. While the film is called Lisa Frankenstein, the book's themes feel like they are just out of reach of the movie at times. However, if you didn't want people to think of the story of Frankenstein when they watched this film, then they shouldn't have put the word "Frankenstein" in the title at all. The film should have picked a lane: either lean into the source material's themes and really turn them on their head or take that name out of the title and do something completely different. The line the film is trying to walk doesn't work. A writer as good as Cody is rarely the weakest link in any production, but that is the case here for some reason. Perhaps she was shaking off the dust from Jennifer's Body, and she still needs some time to figure out how to put her spin on horror.

Williams shows promise as a director and the film really captures the aesthetic of the late 1980s of its setting. The costumes are fantastic, and the soundtrack slaps. It's all well shot and framed, and Wiliams seems to work very well with cinematographer Paula Huidobro. She also has good control over her cast because, with extreme emotions all over the place, you have to know when to lean into the camp and when to dial it back a bit. She pulls excellent performances out of stars Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse, with the latter being almost entirely mute and forced to convey any and all emotion through facial expressions, his eyes, and his body, sometimes through a lot of thick special effects makeup. Newton is leaning into the high camp of all of this and clearly having the time of her life with Lisa and her weird mannerisms, excellent fashion sense, and buckwild sense of morality. Liza Soberano takes a role that quickly could have fallen into cliche and instead makes her the heart of the entire film, even more so than the Creature or Lisa. Carla Gugino is woefully underused in a role that could have been interesting and is instead thankless.

Lisa Frankenstein has the right pieces for a great short film but doesn't have enough to paint the full picture for a feature presentation. Strangely, the film feels like it was stitched together like the Creature in the movie. There was a short story idea, but it was missing pieces, so they got those pieces and just sewed them on. However, unlike the film, the malfunctioning tanning bed didn't fuse those new pieces and the original body seamlessly. Instead, you're left wondering what the core idea behind Lisa Frankenstein could have been if it didn't feel stretched so thin that you can practically see through it.

Lisa Frankenstein

Review by Kaitlyn Booth

4.5/10

Lisa Frankenstein has a solid enough premise but seems to run out of ways to execute it well, and ultimately, it feels like the material is better suited to a short film than a feature-length production.

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