“I love the dead before they’re cold,” Alice Cooper sang on the last track of his band’s album “Billion Dollar Babies” (1973), “the bluing flesh for me to hold.”
Yuck. You think that imagery still packs a slight punch now? Imagine what it did for the parents of America back in the day — this album held Teen USA rapt and launched a thousand op-eds fulminating against “shock rock.”
Necrophilia as a pop concept no longer has the same elder-alienation value it once did, though one shouldn’t expect Taylor Swift to cover Alice anytime soon. (Lana Del Rey might be another story.) As presented in its trailers, the premise of “Lisa Frankenstein,” a teen-horror comedy directed by Zelda Williams from a script by Diablo Cody, felt more eyeroll-inducing than genuinely outrageous.
Advertisement
For the first 10 minutes or so, “Lisa Frankenstein” is just all-over-the-place odd. A charming black-and-white animated sequence playing over the credits actually contains useful backstory that’s not reiterated, so pay attention.
The dynamic between popular effusive cheerleader Taffy (Liza Soberano) and stepsister Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is unusual, a refreshing demo of girl solidarity — Taffy is something of an airhead but genuinely kind to the frizzy-haired, socially awkward Lisa, who hangs out in a local cemetery and makes wax gravestone markings.
On arriving at a kegger, Lisa is first confronted by her secret crush, the high school literary mag editor. She inadvertently ingests a spiked drink, then is nearly sexually assaulted by her nerdy science class lab partner. She staggers home, through the aforementioned graveyard, and passes out, dreaming of Georges Méliès’s legendary fantasy short “A Trip to the Moon” while Boston underground legend Galaxie 500 plays on the soundtrack.
I sure do appreciate that sort of thing, but it also took me a hot minute to glom that this movie is in fact a period piece. Nobody’s got a cellphone, the TVs are cathode-ray models and, well, yes, there’s a Galaxie 500 song on the soundtrack. (Not that their music isn’t timeless, but still.)
When Taffy enthuses about going to see “Look Who’s Talking,” we know for sure we’re in 1989. Why? Well, possibly Cody has fond memories of the big-in-the-′80s Lisa Frank fashion and accessory brand. But it’s also possible that combining period with pastiche is here an easy way to make the situational ethics of the preposterous scenario a little more palatable. (If not plausible.)
Advertisement
Which is to say that “Lisa Frankenstein” actually does become genuinely outrageous. The movie isn’t as angry as Cody’s last foray into horror, 2009′s “Jennifer’s Body.” But it’s got its own sense of spikiness. It’s definitely more “Frankenhooker” than “Monster High.” If you’re not familiar with “Frankenhooker” then a) you really should be, and b) don’t say I didn’t warn you — it’s gnarly. While this picture isn’t as gnarly, it does consistently threaten to cross a line . . . and then, indeed, does cross that line.
The grisly stuff starts — or rather, restarts, because part of shy Lisa’s backstory is that her biological mom was killed by an ax murderer while Lisa herself hid in a closet — on a stormy night, when a bolt of lightning hits a grave to which Lisa’s been paying particularly loving attention. The occupant of that grave is reanimated: a shambling, muddy creature dripping with live worms and regurgitating all manner of undead sputum. His tears smell like death itself, apparently.
Once Lisa susses out just who this creature is, she cleans him up and hides him in her closet. The grunting, halting, but gentle non-life form becomes Lisa’s understanding confidant. But he needs things from her, too. No, not those things. Not right away, at least. (They’ll get to that, rest assured.) No, he needs an ear, and he needs a hand.
How these body parts are gotten is where we run into the aforementioned situational ethics predicament. When Lisa’s evil stepmother, Janet (Carla Gugino), a psychiatric nurse, threatens to go all “Suddenly, Last Summer” on the teen, intending to institutionalize the girl, she’s gotta be dealt with. If you think that handsy lab partner is due for a comeuppance, well, he gets one. All this organ-and-limb-absconding emboldens Lisa, whose school presentation gets a high-goth makeover — although the sunglasses she sports are pure Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.”
Advertisement
That visual cue is no coincidence; neither are the pink flamingoes on one suburban lawn, a nod to debonair trash filmmaker John Waters. The young cast — the versatile Newton as Lisa, the stealthily hilarious Soberano as Taffy, and a very game shambling and grunting Cole Sprouse as The Creature — is consistently watchable.
I mentioned “Lisa Frankenstein” crosses lines, but it also goes off the rails a lot — so, if you’re looking for a movie that really holds together, this is not the one. While I admire the way it remains committed to its own perversity, the whole is not quite the sum of its body parts.
★★½
LISA FRANKENSTEIN
Directed by Zelda Williams. Written by Diablo Cody. Starring Kathryn Newton, Liza Soberano, Cole Sprouse, Carla Gugino. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, Landmark Kendall Square, suburbs. 101 minutes. Rated PG-13 (gross-out violence, sexual longing, and murder)
Glenn Kenny is a film critic and the author of “Made Men: The Story of ‘Goodfellas.”