3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Lisa Frankenstein

2024, Zelda Williams (Kappa Kappa Die) -- download

For much of this movie, I was thinking, often out loud to the screen (yes, I am that old now), "Is this movie really this bad?!?!" There are just so many moments where I wanted to cringe for the actors eliciting their lines, and the director for choosing to depict that on screen, and for Diablo Cody actually writing that in the script. And yet, we persevered and came out the other side, and a part of my lizard brain cannot help but keep thinking about the movie. Which is something.

Lisa Swallows (an unfortunate name for a high school kid; Kathryn Newton, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things) mom was killed by an axe murderer. That has very little to do with the movie. Two years later her dad is married to a Karen named Janet (Carla Gugino, San Andreas) and Lisa has a popular cheerleader step-sister named Taffy (Liza Soberano, Bagani). Except Taffy is not an evil step-sister, and you keep on waiting for the veil to lift, but it never does. It is the best part about the movie, in that her vacuous but sweet & truly caring nature is genuine. Lisa is the weird step sister, picked on at school, dorky in nature, hanging out in the graveyard (of bachelors; yes the graveyard only has men who died wife-less) and pining for the lit club president. She also proclaims undying love to a gravestone. And then on a fateful night, for no reason at all, there is green lightning and it raises one of the dead bachelors. He shambles off to find Lisa, who professed love to him. Afterall, he died a bachelor. 

Lisa hides him in her closet, all rotting corpse-fied, sprouting bugs and worms. He dotes on her, in his own rotting, mute (no tongue), smelly way and even gives her some fashion tips. Thus Lisa starts becoming a confident, one might say asshole, goth. Lisa's (truly) evil step-mother is saying truly evil things to Lisa and corpse-bachelor (Cole Sprouse, Riverdale) has had enough -- he clonks Janet on the head. Dead Janet. Lisa is not all that bothered by it, and since Janet is dead, she can give up a hand. Thus Lisa discovers that if she attaches a fresh limb to corpse-bachelor (no, he never gets a name ala "Frankenstein") and zaps him in her sister's defective tanning bed, the limb becomes useful. One new, well manicured hand. 

Now, Janet was going to a convention, so nobody immediately misses her, but eventually they realize she is truly missing. Taffy is heart broken -- its her mom after all. Lisa's dad focuses on supporting his daughters. Lisa is becoming more and more amoral about the whole thing. And thaaaat is how the movie goes. Kill a groping, rumour spreading classmate, get an ear. Find out Taffy is sleeping with the lit club president, who Lisa never actually pursued, get a ... cough ... dick. It is that final act that reveals Lisa has lost it. The police are on her trail, Taffy and Dad (Joe Chrest, Stranger Things) know she is a murderer with a weird corpse-fied boyfriend. So, Lisa takes the last recourse --- dies in the defective tanning bed.

Epilogue. Lisa is now a walking corpse and the two undead can walk off into the sunset together. How romantic.

It was a weird, weird movie. Its not the first time Diablo Cody has written us into rooting for the murderous high school girl. But Zelda's desire to be "the next Tim Burton" (I doubt that was actually her intent, but you can see it there, in droves, even if it was only Purple Suit meddling) washes the movie with bright colours, weird characters and melodramatic flairs aplenty. I wavered constantly between this being intent (Kent's comment about intent of creators constantly haunts me) or just clumsy delivery. Despite my initial cringing, I actually found myself enjoying (that may be too strong a word) or at least intrigued enough to see it through.

You watch a lot of toss-away movies. For example, this one from the archives, "The Brass Teapot". Maybe MOST movies are toss away movies? But what about these inbetweeners, not good or memorable enough to end up on a streaming service backlog, but also not terrible enough to end up sold for pennies to Tubi.