Diablo Cody has had an interesting career. After winning an Academy Award for her first feature screenplay, she has written a variety of films, but the throughline they all share is the protagonist is always a complicated woman. I personally think her second collaboration with director Jason Reitman, the Charlize Theron vehicle Young Adult is her strongest screenplay, but that isn’t widely agreed upon. This time, Cody is full-on back in Jennifer’s Body mode with Zelda Williams’ directorial debut Lisa Frankenstein. This film is absolutely bonkers nutso go-for-broke craziness. I’m glad the trailers didn’t give very much away because there are plenty of delicious and demented surprises to be had here.

The year is 1989. Lisa (Kathryn Newton, of Blockers and Freaky) is a teenage girl whose mother was recently murdered in front of her. She moves with her father, his new wife Janet (Carla Gugino), and her new stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano) to a new town and starts attending a new school in her senior year. Lisa has a curiosity with the morbid and keeps visiting this allegedly haunted graveyard. One night she makes a wish at the graveyard and inadvertently reanimates a long-dead corpse (Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse) and turns it into her boyfriend. Shenanigans and murder and body horror ensue.

Newton has proven herself to be particularly adept at this kind of comedy and she feels right at home with a Diablo Cody script. Cole Sprouse is not called upon to do very much – his evolution is a bit underwhelming, and I could see that being a problem for some viewers, but I enjoyed him here as well. However the standouts here are Liza Soberano, as Lisa’s new stepsister, a popular and sunny young woman who is more genuine and has a lot more heart than you would think. And Carla Gugino is having the time of her life in a scene stealing villain role. 

Lisa Frankenstein is where the Halloween movie and the Valentine’s Day movie intersect. It’s part Death Becomes Her, part Warm Bodies, with a dash of the original Beetlejuice and it’s got potential cult classic written all over it. It feels very early career Tim Burton in the best way, but also puts Zelda Williams on the map as a filmmaker to pay close attention to. The daughter of the late Robin Williams, Zelda Williams has directed a few short films and some music videos, and she has a particularly strong artistic eye. The period detail – Mark Worthington’s production design, Mclaughlin Luster’s costumes, and the score by Florence + the Machine’s Isabella Summers all effectively add to the very specific mood being set here. It feels like nostalgia for the very specific kind of 1980s Diablo Cody must remember fondly.

Overall, Lisa Frankenstein might be a bit stifled by the PG-13 rating, but I was a bit surprised at all they were able to get away with in this film. There are a few points where things get shocking and gross. There are several – not exactly plot twists, but plot developments – that had me gasping with my hands over my face. I don’t think this is perfect, but it’s a very fun time at the movies, especially considering we’re kind of in the middle of a cinematic dumping ground in the month of February, where audiences are mostly catching up with the awards contenders and where most new studio offerings are quite lousy. It might present as a sort of diet Jennifer’s Body, but even that was enough to satisfy a craving for a kind of movie we don’t get very much anymore.