The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
SAND AND DELIVER...
EPIC SCI-FI SEQUEL IS A SPECTACULAR TREAT FOR THE EYES AND EARS
LISA FRANKENSTEIN (15)
During the 1980s, teenage misfits found their groove in films such as The Breakfast Club, The Goonies, Weird Science and Heathers.
Diablo Cody, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Juno, nods affectionately to this era of adolescent underdogs in a bloodthirsty horror comedy set in 1989. It marks the feature directorial debut of Zelda Williams, daughter of the late actor Robin Williams.
Socially awkward teen Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) slowly emerges from traumatic mutism after witnessing the death of her mother (Jennifer Pierce Mathus) by the blade of a masked maniac.
Six months after this devastating loss, her father Dale (Joe Chrest) marries a cruel, self-obsessed nurse named Janet (Carla Gugino), who already has a perky cheerleader daughter named Taffy (Liza Soberano) from a previous relationship.
Consumed by morbid thoughts, Lisa visits her favourite headstone in the local cemetery and whispers her desire to join the dead. That night, a bolt of green lightning strikes the grave and reanimates a Victorian man (Cole
Sprouse), whose zombified
form develops a deep romantic attachment to Lisa.
The shuffling stranger intimates he can be made physically whole again with freshly harvested human body parts and electrical discharges from Taffy’s shortcircuiting horizontal tanning bed.
Utilising rudimentary sewing skills picked up at her part-time job, Lisa wreaks revenge on her tormentors and stitches their severed appendages onto her grateful undead paramour.
Lisa Frankenstein is supposedly brought to life by a miraculous bolt from the heavens but Williams’ picture feels oddly lifeless for extended periods. A clear emotional through-line proves elusive between appealingly macabre vignettes.
“I just don’t think anyone should be forgotten,” observes Lisa, referring to the dearly departed.
Sadly, the film that takes her name might be.
■ In selected cinemas Friday