Film Review: ‘Lisa Frankenstein’
Zelda Williams’ creative take on the ‘Frankenstein’ trope
“That’s really weird, Lisa.”
Normally, I wouldn’t consider putting this kind of movie on my most anticipated films list. Sure, I would watch it when there’s nothing else to watch. But Lisa Frankenstein was an exception and it’s all because of Liza Soberano, a famous actress in the Philippines and my fellow compatriot (which I will circle back later on).
Story
The film starts off with an animated story of a mysterious Victorian man who was a skilled pianist. Unfortunately, his lover left him for another man and he was so heartbroken. Finally, lightning struck him and he was buried in Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery.
In the year 1989, Lisa is a misunderstood goth girl who now lives with her nonchalant father (Dale), her narcissistic stepmother (Janet) who always criticizes her, and her supportive cheerleader stepsister (Taffy) after witnessing the brutal murder of her mother during a home invasion when she was younger. She also likes to spend her time at the Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery where she talks to one of the graves.
During a party Taffy brought her to, Lisa’s drink was spiked and later on she is groped by one of her classmates. She rushes out of the party and heads towards the cemetery while feeling disoriented. She expresses her wish to be with the man that she often talks to whenever she visits his grave. Unbeknownst to her, a green lightning bolt strikes that very grave after she goes home causing the zombie-like Creature to be resurrected.
One night, when Lisa’s family goes to the movies, the Creature crashes into their house and frightens Lisa. She finds out eventually that that was the corpse from the cemetery that she often spoke to, and she starts to care for him by making him more human. To complete his missing body parts, Lisa and the Creature murder people (including her stepmother who threatened that she would send Lisa to an asylum) to collect their body parts and sew it on him. Lisa uses Taffy’s tanning bed to electrocute him to make the body parts become one with him. Hence the movie title ‘Lisa Frankenstein’.
However, when the police start investigating the victims’ disappearances and are close to catching them, Lisa decides to electrocute herself on the tanning bed so she can be with the Creature forever. Some time later, Dale and Taffy visits Lisa and Janet’s graves. But they didn’t know that Lisa was alive again as we see the Creature, who looks like a human already and has gained back the ability to speak, reads to Lisa who is wrapped in bandages.
Production Design
Seeing the production design, it reminded me of Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissorhands’. My guess was that that was one of the inspirations they were going for. Mark Worthington, the Production Designer who was also responsible for American Horror Story, The Umbrella Academy, and Wandavision, said that creating the retro-kitsch home was a homage to the ‘80s design. The aim was to have a atmosphere of mundane realism while making Janet’s house very pastel and colorful to make Lisa more uncomfortable.
The Sisterly Bond of Lisa and Taffy
The movie’s concept has a nice twist to the Frankenstein theme by making it a rom-com and more teen-oriented rather than the usual monster genre. Another twist that I enjoyed was Lisa and Taffy’s sisterly dynamics. Very often, stepsisters are portrayed as mean towards the main character (think of Cinderella, for a classic example) but Taffy was very supportive of Lisa from the start and always makes sure that she’s okay at school. However, towards the end of the film, Lisa discovers Taffy and her crush in bed and feels betrayed by them. Even after that act, Lisa still saves Taffy from the Creature after he kills Michael and gives Taffy her late mother’s Rosary as a token of kindness and sympathy.
The Beginning of Liza Soberano’s Hollywood Career
Circling back to Taffy’s actress, Liza Soberano, her announcement of pursuing a career in Hollywood and changing her talent agency caused quite a stir back in the Philippines with her former talent manager and gossip outlets calling her ungrateful because of her honest interview about the state of the Philippine entertainment industry where loveteams are prevalent, where young actors and actresses of each new generation are often stuck with those loveteams as it is more profitable for the big production companies. Because of that interview, they wanted to ruin her reputation and see her fail in Hollywood. She made it clear that she has always been grateful to her former manager and the industry as this gave her the opportunity of becoming an actress. Fortunately for Liza, her performance here received a lot of praise from critics. Here’s to hoping that she gets more Hollywood projects in the future.
Although I first watched this for Liza Soberano, the endearingly goofy plot and Kathryn Newton’s costumes got me more invested to this. Furthermore, I think there should be more rom-com movies like this as well as ‘No Hard Feelings’ since both are giving the sort of vibe of an 80s/90/00s rom-com film despite being made recently.
