Lisa Frankenstein

My wife and I attended a screening of Lisa Frankenstein (2024) this evening. The storyline follows a young lady whose mother was recently killed by an ax murderer. Her father remarries, and they move to a new home with her new mom and stepsister. A nearby haunted graveyard becomes her fascination, especially a young man's tombstone. One day, her prayer and lightening revive him, but he needs new body parts.

Directed by Zelda Williams in her major motion picture debut, the film stars Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Cole Sprouse (Riverdale), Liza Soberano (Trese), Carla Gugino (The Fall of the House of Usher), and Joe Chrest (Stranger Things).

The film is unfortunately uneven and has a solid beginning reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands, capturing an early Tim Burton feel with its 1989 setting. The attire, soundtrack, sets, and cinematography contribute to this atmosphere. The opening credits' animation and creative sets are praiseworthy, and the dialogue exudes cleverness with a perfect dark comedy feel. While horror elements and kills are hit or miss, the film showcases elite slow-motion blood splatter (making me wonder why more films don't leverage that special effect). However, certain scenes, like the awkward backing away and police interrogation, feel forced and out of place. The hunched-over walk scenes also detract from the overall tone. The ending, however, is a positive note.

In conclusion, Lisa Frankenstein has worthwhile elements but falls short of its potential. I would score this a 5/10 but recommend watching it once. This does have a target audience that will love it.

Essentially a blind watch, I must say I surprisingly enjoyed this film.

Lisa Frankenstein was surprisingly enjoyable. It was completely ridiculous and completely stupid, but I found its quirkiness oddly endearing and sweet.

Great performances from the supporting cast and Lisa played fantastically by the beautifully talented Kathryn Newton. She is quickly becoming a favorite actress of mine.

Overall, while I most certainly enjoyed the film, there were certain elements that didn't completely work for me that I'm sure would work for others.

Charming, endearing, and darkly humorous makes Lisa Frankenstein a worthwhile watch that I, for one, did not see myself enjoying.

PS. Still a better love story than Twilight.

IMDb: 6/10 Letterboxd: 3/5

Watched in Theaters.

It's horror, its teen comedy its nostalgia all wrapped up in a perfect package appealing to the future Tim Burton's and Robert Smith's of the world. Especially if they are girls.

I watched this movie and I'm strange enough to understand where Lisa Frankenstein is coming from but there is a refreshing female gauze that covers the film nicely. I mean, I feel like I would have missed something watching this at home instead of with a theatre filled with women who laughed out loud to situations I just found passingly amusing. I thought this movie was great and thought it was great that the movie was not directed towards me.

Lisa Frankenstein is for those strange kids in high school but especially if you are that weird girl.

I liked this movie just fine.

It's a dark comedy and a good watch just before the Halloween holiday.

A nice alternative to anything super dark or scary that you may also be viewing as the days add up to trick or treat time.

Kathryn Newton as the title character is a bold and fiery actress who is quickly rising as maybe her generation's greatest.

Sydney Sweeney may be getting all the hype but Newton's making the interesting choices among her peers.

I just saw and reviewed the excellent Freaky with Newton and Vince Vaughn for the above titled list that I have composed.

The knock on this movie written by a fave, Diablo Cody, for me is that it just tries to hard to be all 80's, and in doing so, drops the ball in complete accuracy I was in high school in the late 80's and a senior in 1989 and I can tell you for certain people weren't dressing like Lucky Star Madonna at that time.

There are other props and product placements but other than that, it's your typical kid with a monster movie.

And that's all right for this Halloween.

This is one of the oddest experiences I've had at the movies in a while. Lisa Frankenstein is a film where the idea seemed fun, the people involved have made things I've enjoyed in the past, and the cast seemed to be having a great time, so what went wrong for me? Well, I think it all comes down to the fact that this movie is trying to be accessible to a wide age spectrum, but that made the movie lose a bit of its charm. This is easily a script that should've taken it one step further and been rated R. Many films have done similar premises to this one in the past, and while I won't say they were all better in concept, the final products say otherwise. Let me explain myself.

Taking place in 1989, Lisa (Kathryn Newton), a teenager with a few questionable traits, wishes to be with someone who is dead and she has never met. His corpse is reanimated after she wishes upon his grave and a mysterious storm hits. From here, even though he can't speak, they become close and kind of psychotic. This very quickly becomes a twisted and messed up movie, but under the PG-13 banner, it just felt watered down. There are multiple instances when limbs are chopped off or people are murdered, and while it all is done in the spirit of having a good, weird time at the movies, it lacks the visuals of everything that was going on.

Kathryn Newton is quite enjoyable as Lisa and I wish the film had better dialogue for her because even though there is some clever writing and she made me laugh quite often, she is a much darker character than the PG-13 rating allowed her to be. Cole Sprouse (in my opinion) has honestly never been better though. He has no lines, but that made for some great physical acting. For a character without dialogue, he held his own against Newton here. Carla Gugino plays Lisa's stepmother and where that story leads is easily the highlight of the film, but again, every great idea this film had just felt watered down. I feel like a broken record talking about this one simply because I think this had all the bones of a great, fun, weird movie. There is also one scene in particular where I was laughing because I couldn't believe what I was watching, but the movie couldn't go far enough to show it actually happening. That was the majority of my experience here, even though the film was clever enough to be mildly enjoyable as it is.

Look, Zelda Williams does a solid job at directing here, Diablo Cody's script is sharp, but does add the extra flare that was needed, I liked every performance, and it absolutely felt like it was from the '80s/'90s. Everyone did a very solid job bringing this screenplay to life. Everything about this movie from the set design to the bright, visual aesthetic all worked for me and should be commended, I just can't wrap my head around why this one wasn't rated R, especially considering certain things that happen or are implied here. It's a head-scratcher for me. I still had a good time though and I feel that the crowd that will like this one the most are teenagers in high school who get the humour. Otherwise, it's okay, but it had so much potential.