There are movies you really love, and then there are movies that feel like they were made so specifically with you in mind that the first time you watch them, they float off the screen, seep into your body, and fuse with your molecules. Lisa Frankenstein is the latter. For those of us who are a little bit (or maybe a lot bit) odd and twisted, it’s a wacky, beautiful mix of camp, horror, comedy, and romance. It’s the kind of movie I want to show everyone in my life, knowing that no one will actually want to watch with me because I’ll be watching them to make sure they’re reacting correctly. 2024 is still young, but every other movie I watch this year will be all the poorer for not being Lisa Frankenstein.
Lisa Frankenstein is everything good about movies. Lisa Frankenstein is my Barbie. Like the Creature himself, so many different pieces are patchworked together to make a wonderful whole. Animated sequences, neon 80s vibes, and a highly stylized black-and-white dream sequence with nods to silent film — why choose some of it when you could do all of it instead? I can’t believe a major studio actually took a risk on a movie this distinctive, just as much as I can’t believe Lisa Frankenstein isn’t the only thing people are talking about right now. It deserves the entire world.
This is the kind of gem audiences are treated to when women make movies — it’s truly by and for the girls. Lisa Frankenstein is the feature film debut of director Zelda Williams, and I already can’t wait to see what she’s going to do next. Together with cinematographer Paula Huidobro, Williams creates an incredible and bold-looking film that knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be and executes it precisely. The production design, costumes, and music are all expertly woven together, and the spooky, sexy elements are perfectly balanced with the more tender emotional beats, making for a wildly fun and heartwarming ride. Lisa Frankenstein takes such a massive swing, and Williams knocks it out of the park. Writer Diablo Cody once again brings her particular talents and sharp sensibilities to craft a story about grief, female sexuality, the thorny awkwardness of coming into yourself as a woman, and the ways love can bring us to life (both literally and figuratively in this case).
Cody isn’t afraid to let women be complicated and messy, and Lisa Swallows is a mess. Dr. Frankenstein and Mary Shelley all in one, she’s still reeling from the death of her mother and her oblivious father, caustic stepmother, and outcast status at high school leave her incredibly lonely, to the degree that she feels most comfortable at the local graveyard. Feeling unseen, unheard, and unloved, it makes sense that she’d bond with the headstone of a man who can only listen to her. When a lightning strike brings him above ground, connecting with and opening up to The Creature gives Lisa new confidence and helps her find her voice again. Kathryn Newton is so charming that there’s never a moment you’re not rooting for Lisa, even as she becomes more and more unhinged and comfortable with the dark and violent turns her life begins to take as the result of the macabre surprise that digs his way out of his grave and onto her doorstep.
Lisa’s Creature is a funny, brooding, yearning, protective, leading man, and Cole Sprouse is somehow able to project all of that perfectly without saying a word. As someone who has never seen Riverdale, to him, I say, “Well, hello there, sir. I was not familiar with your game.” Without the benefit of grand speeches — or any lines at all — about his feelings for Lisa, the Creature flirts with a quirk of his lips, pleads with his soft puppy dog eyes, and burrows his way into her heart with grunts and groans. He might be scary to most, but not to Lisa and not to us. They don’t know our undead 19th-century boyfriend like we do. Sprouse doesn’t need to speak; he makes Creature the ideal romantic hero using just his physicality.
(There’s also a wonderful story about sisterly love, and Liza Soberano is delightful as Lisa’s step-sister Taffy. A character like her — cheerleader and pageant queen — could easily be, and so often is, written as a bully. But Taffy is the warm beating heart at the center of Lisa Frankenstein.)
I haven’t been this all-consumed by a movie in years, and I missed the exhilarating feeling of sitting in a theater watching a film for the first time, knowing that it’s destined to be one of your favorites. Not every story can deliver scenes that have the theater literally screaming with laughter alongside a quiet line about grief that hit me right in the chest and will stay with me forever. All the comparisons to Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride are well made, even though Tim Burton, as much as I love his work, could never tap into the vein of the misery and delights of the female experience the way Lisa Frankenstein does.
Every classic monster would be lucky to get a movie like this.
Lisa Frankenstein, a zany film for freaks and the dream of everyone who’s always thought there’s something sexy about monsters, is available on streaming services now. It’s perfect, I’m obsessed with it, and you need to watch it.