True love resurrected: Diablo Cody's Lisa Frankenstein
Gill Pringle
STACK Writer
Hit screenwriter Diablo Cody returns with 'Lisa Frankenstein', a teen zom com set in the same universe as her 2009 cult favourite, 'Jennifer's Body'.
Cody hit the ball right out of the park writing the smart and witty script for coming-of-age dramedy Juno, earning her a 2007 Oscar for best original screenplay.
The wunderkind screenwriter, now 46, could do no wrong, going on to pen the hit TV series United States of Tara for producer Steven Spielberg, starring our own Toni Collette.
Directors and actors alike loved bringing her words to life. Cody wrote the cult film Jennifer’s Body (2009) starring Megan Fox; Ricki and the Flash (2015) for Meryl Streep, plus Young Adult (2011) and Tully (2018), both starring Charlize Theron.
Shifting her considerable talents to Broadway in 2018, she earned a Tony for the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill. Now, she returns to the big screen, penning the script for comedy horror film Lisa Frankenstein.
Helmed by first-time feature director Zelda Williams - daughter of the late Robin Williams - the film stars Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Joe Chrest, and Carla Gugino.
The plot follows a misunderstood teenage goth girl who meets and develops a relationship with a reanimated Victorian-era corpse, Cody stating that Lisa Frankenstein is set in the same fictional universe as Jennifer’s Body.
Newton - best known for her roles in Big Little Lies, (2017-2019), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) - portrays Lisa Swallows, a lonely girl still reeling from her mother's death at the hands of an axe murderer two year earlier.
Spending much of her time at the cemetery, Lisa’s father has remarried and she has gained a step-sister, Taffy. Reluctantly agreeing to attend a party with Taffy, Lisa has an awkward encounter with her high school crush Michael, and is drugged by one of his friends and later assaulted by Doug, her lab partner. The poor girl just can’t catch a break!
Returning to the cemetery, she speaks to the grave of a man who died in 1837 - a former pianist who was passionately in love with a woman before she left him for another man. He was killed after being struck by lightning. A bolt of lightning suddenly strikes the grave after Lisa leaves, and the man is brought back to life as a zombie. Enter Cole Sprouse’s newly-resurrected “The Creature”.
Mute and covered in debris, The Creature breaks into Lisa’s house. She realises he is the man whose grave she dotes on, and hides him in her closet. Using Taffy’s tanning bed, she is later able to restore The Creature to a more human appearance, better resembling Sprouse’s handsome Riverdale star status.
What follows is a series of reanimation snafus involving her step-mum’s ears, her dad’s hand, Michel’s penis, and various other body parts. What could possibly go wrong you ask? We can only hope that true love prevails.
It's alive! It's alive!!
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