Lisa Frankenstein: The Monstrous Nature of Girlhood

Mar 21

Lisa Frankenstein: The Monstrous Nature of Girlhood

Gab Aniceto March 21, 2024, 6:00 PM

*Cole Sprouse as The Creature, Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows | Entertainment Weekly/Focus Features*

Major spoilers for Lisa Frankenstein ahead.

There’s a famous saying by William Congreve: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” and if there’s any place to see what he means by that, look no further than a teen girl’s experience of high school. Lisa Frankenstein joins the ranks of Heathers and The Craft as a teenage girl’s coming-of-rage story—this time with a campy, goth twist. It’s the macabre meeting the mundane as a lonely, angry girl finds ways to cope with all the ways her life has changed. And if one of those ways is accidentally re-animating the corpse of a boy from the 1800s? Well, is that any worse than what other teenagers do?

This is the story of Lisa Swallows, a misunderstood teen who moves in with her new family after her mother is murdered. Diablo Cody, writer of 2009, cult-classic, horror comedy Jennifer’s Body, is no stranger to misunderstood teenage girls. In fact, when I saw she was writing about Frankenstein and teen girls, I was immediately sold. Cody’s horror-comedy scripts capture teen girlhood in all its angry, hormonal glory. This time around, she’s focusing on the outcast’s story.

There seems to be a renewed interest in Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein recently. The day I went to go see Lisa Frankenstein, there were 3 posters advertising Frankenstein-related projects. One for the National Theatre’s Frankenstein play, one for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, and of course, for Lisa Frankenstein. We even have Del Toro’s Frankenstein film to look forward to. Something I found interesting is how 2 of the 3 Frankenstein projects available right now are centred around women.

It may seem odd to some people to think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a feminist piece of literature. After all, the women in the book play secondary roles in Victor Frankenstein’s ego and his obsessive nature to create man. Even Victor himself seems to fear the enlightened and empowered woman when he starts to have musings about creating a companion for his first creature. Sadly this still reflects the attitude of some men today, especially with the alarming rise of conservative culture on social media.

Looking at the circumstances behind the book tells a different story. Mary Shelley- still Mary Godwin back then, had an unconventional upbringing. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft was considered one of the first feminist writers and after her untimely death, she was raised in a blended family with an older half-sister named Clara. Mary shared her mother’s rebellious nature and love for education as she would have scandalous meetups with Percy Shelley at her mother’s grave, and also attend scientific lectures in London in her spare time.

Frankenstein was born when the pair were on a gloomy holiday with their friends, Lord Byron and John Polidori. A writing challenge was put forward: Who could write the best ghost story? Despite her male companions quickly abandoning the task, Mary persisted and ended up creating one of the most iconic science fiction works we have today, created out of her nightmares of “the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life”. Frankenstein, despite its central male characters—is very much steeped in the fears of motherhood and birth, and drawn from Mary’s own story.

It seems fitting, given how Frankenstein was born—that Cody and Williams have taken the Frankenstein story and given it to an angry teenage girl. There seems to be a blend of both the book and Mary Shelley’s own life when it comes to Lisa’s story. We first meet Lisa (played by Kathryn Newton) getting ready to go to a high school party. Her step-sister, Taffy (played by Liza Soberano) is eager to help her sister fit in.

Lisa is someone anyone who’s ever been an outcast will relate to. Everyone finds her weird when she tries, and weird when she doesn’t. She’s at a new high school, doing her best to fit in with a new family after going through an immense loss, and she feels like no one gets her. It’s the universal teen experience she’s going through that period of your life when you’re trying to understand who you are and what you want, while being surrounded by people trying to put you in a neat little box. Who can blame Lisa for wanting to spend time in an abandoned graveyard, listening to The Cure?

When it comes to setting a contrast, Zelda Williams seems to draw on some Tim Burton-esque influences here, with the closest comparison I can make being to Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Lisa’s budding gothiness stands out among the 80s pastels. The black and white opening of the movie is a shadow puppet-esque animation that details the creature’s backstory and the movie’s title comes in as one of Lisa’s gravestone rubbings.

Everyone is a caricature here—from Lisa herself, to her cheerleader step sister, her “empathetic” step-mother and her oblivious father. The movie’s environments are all slightly exaggerated in a way that helps set the scene for this heightened world where bringing a long-dead Victorian man back to life is possible. Lisa’s room is even reminiscent of the 80s Addams Family set.

The party is kind of a disaster for Lisa. While trying to impress her crush, she accidentally ends up getting drugged and taken advantage of by a supposed nice guy trying to “help” her. A scenario that is sadly all too real for teenage girls. I wanted to reach through the screen and help her. We also get our first hint that popular girl Taffy is not necessarily the stereotype we think she is, as she tries to look after Lisa and even berates Lisa’s crush for giving her sister drugs. Upset, she leaves and makes her way back home through the graveyard, stopping to say hello to her favorite gravestone as green lightning crackles around her. It’s alive!

Zelda Williams' directorial flair shines in a surreal black and white sequence, reminiscent of Coraline’s Other World, set to Galaxie 500's "Strange." It’s wonderfully weird and captures Lisa’s essence, with nods to the Bride of Frankenstein. The soundtrack for this movie is honestly pretty great. The Pixies, REO Speedwagon, and When in Rome? I would love to get a copy.

Lisa’s home situation isn’t great either. Janet is unwelcoming and wants to send Lisa to a mental institution. Lisa’s father, Dale, seems to have completely checked out after her mother’s death. But in a lovely reversal of tropes, Taffy is very kind and sweet to her step-sister, despite their differences. While the movie may be about Newton and Sprouse’s odd love story, I would argue that it’s Taffy and Lisa's relationship that is the beating heart of this story. Liza Soberano’s performance as Taffy is so open-hearted and warm in a way that completely subverts the popular step-sister trope in teen movies, and leaves you wishing Lisa would understand her sister instead of the other way around.

*Liza Soberano as Taffy, Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows*

If there’s one thing Lisa truly is, it’s lonely. And even an undead creature is better than being lonely in high school. After Lisa realizes she’s talking to the boy from the graveyard, she ends up confessing that when she wished she was with him, she meant she wished she was dead. It’s heart-breaking, and perfectly teen-angsty and you completely understand why Lisa feels this way.

We then get the typical teen movie makeover montage with Lisa and her new friend, where The Creature dresses up in her clothes. There’s even a reversal where he ends up choosing Lisa’s outfit the next day and settles on a black dress that Taffy gave Lisa. The transformation has begun.

At school, Lisa’s crush asks her for notes for a class he wasn’t paying attention to. Lisa’s crush, Michael Trent is your typical pretentious fuckboy. He listens to cool indie music, runs the school literary newspaper and quotes Oscar Wilde. He’s like– so different and unique. And totally using Lisa. Of course Lisa doesn’t see that. I mean, I get her- I had crushes on people like that when I was in high school. It doesn’t make it any less painful to see on screen. At least we get Taffy quoting Oscar the Grouch back at him, telling him to “Scram!”.

From here we follow Lisa’s descent into darkness. When she gets home from school, Janet ambushes her, ready to send her to the mental institution despite her father’s wishes. Lisa screaming “Damn it, Janet!” as she tried to get the creature to hide had me pointing at the screen like that one Leonardo Di Caprio meme. The Rocky Horror Picture Show reference, anyone? Janet is their first murder. The Creature hits her over the head with Lisa's sewing machine in defense of Lisa. Honestly, I can’t say I was too sad to see her go. Sorry, Carla Gugino!

As I mentioned before, The Creature is decaying. He’s missing a few body parts. Namely, a hand, an ear, and his penis. The ear they take from Janet’s body, before they bury her. Lisa’s sewing skills come in handy as she attaches the ear to the creature, and gives him a jolt with the broken tanning bed in their shed.

Lisa has started to fully embrace the mad scientist of it all now, as her clothes become darker and she tries to cover up Janet’s disappearance. She decides to harvest the hand she needs from the guy who tried to grope her at the party. The two ambush him, Heathers style—making him think he’s about to hook up with her, before killing him. As Lisa waved a severed hand around, gleefully saying “I told you I’d hold your stupid hand!” I thought: “Well, there’s no turning back now.” And truly there isn’t as the two go down a bloody revenge-driven path that culminates in the creature almost killing Taffy.

*Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows, Cole Sprouse as The Creature | Focus Features*

As I said, Taffy and Lisa’s relationship is the heart of the story. They’re two sisters, desperate for the other to understand them. Taffy is Lisa’s Elizabeth. In the book, the creature kills Elizabeth to hurt Victor. Lisa is luckily able to stop him from killing Taffy, but this is the incident that pushes Lisa to realize she needs to destroy the creature.

It’s here that we get what I think is the best scene in the movie. In the car with a traumatized Taffy, Lisa thanks her for being kind, and trying to truly make her feel like part of the family. She calls Taffy her sister, and apologizes for hurting her before telling Taffy she loves her and giving her her mother’s rosary as a goodbye. It’s a bittersweet, beautifully acted scene from both Kathryn Newton and Liza Soberano that shows Lisa’s growth and realization that Taffy was there for her the whole time.

Frankenstein ends with Victor dying while trying to hunt The Creature. The Creature, still not at peace despite Victor’s death, vows to burn itself on a pyre so that no one will ever see him again. True to the book, this movie ends the same way. The same gothic tragedy, dressed up in Aquanet and high school angst. After one last night together, Lisa decides she needs to die, and convinces The Creature to electrocute her in the pink tanning bed she’s been using to bring him closer to life. Lisa burns to death as the neighbors from across the street watch the shed go up in flames.

Sometime later, Taffy, wearing Lisa’s rosary and her father visit Lisa’s grave. She notices something strange on Lisa’s gravestone. An etching: “Beloved Wife”.

We close out the movie with The Creature, looking more alive than ever- reading Percy Shelley’s poem, “To Mary” to a bandaged up, and newly reanimated Lisa as she opens her eyes.

Lisa Frankenstein isn’t a movie for everyone. The same way Jennifer’s Body, and all the movies it pays homage to aren’t for everyone. But at its core, it’s a movie that genuinely embraces its premise. It’s a movie about teenage loneliness and the extreme ways one girl copes with it. I may be in my 20s now, but I remember that feeling all too well. That overwhelming terror and hurt, and anger that is an unspoken part of girlhood, where it seems like you are misunderstood and underestimated by everyone. To me, Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams have made a movie that is tragic, funny, and sincere, one that fully understands all the reasons Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in 1818 and is a love letter to the goth and horror comedies of the 80s and 90s. As a weirdo myself, this is one movie that I think I will keep digging up to watch over and over again.