I’d like to think that Mary Shelley, sci-fi pioneer and the most gothic author who ever gothed, would be pleased to know that her novel “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” would one day inspire a movie about a teenager getting it on with a re-animated cadaver. The ’80s-set “Lisa Frankenstein” plays as fast-and-loose with its sci-fi components as the many ’80 horror, high school, and sci-fi comedies it homages. Lightning miraculously reviving a dead body buried in the ground? A faulty tanning bed that somehow makes a slimy, rotted corpse more alive? Look, it doesn’t matter. The fantastical science in “Lisa Frankenstein” is just this audaciously off-kilter coming-of-(r)age love story’s means to an end.
Kathryn Newton stars as the titular Lisa, a lonesome teen goth girl with a dark past who finds her soulmate in a revived nameless Victorian corpse (Cole Sprouse). This isn’t just a superficial imitation of a warped, satirical ’80s movie, it’s a warped, satirical ’80s movie in spirit. Armed with writer Diablo Cody’s dark wit and provocative observations about the challenges of being an underage misfit (and not in a cutesy way, but in an “Okay, this girl is a certified oddball” sense), plus some deliciously wild performances and director Zelda Williams doing a better Tim Burton impersonation than Burton himself has done in years, “Lisa Frankenstein” will awaken your inner sicko like a bolt of lighting to the head. Huh, maybe its science isn’t so fictional after all. (Sandy Schaefer)
Director: Zelda Williams
Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Carla Gugino, Henry Eikenberry, and Joe Chrest
Rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 51%
