A Rom-Com for Spooky Season!

I don't like scary movies. Or, at least, that's been my line for at least twenty years. I don't like to be scared and if scary movies aren't scary, they are dumb, and I don't like to watch dumb things either. But my husband has been waging a quiet campaign to get me interested in horror. When we first got together, he offered to watch all seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls if I would agree to watch Alien and The Conjuring. Then we watched Get Out and Midsommar, which are incredible pieces of cinema that just happen to be scary. Lately, we've been watching our way through the Mike Flanagan shows on Netflix, like Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, which are basically eight-hour-long explorations of Flanagan's feelings about addiction and religion with some scary stuff thrown in. And...like...maybe I'm starting to like scary things? Scary-ish things?

Not that Lisa Frankenstein is scary, per se. There's a lot of ickiness: bugs, decay, grave dirt, blood, and multiple electrocutions. But while Lisa may appear to be a plucky rom-com heroine at the beginning of the movie, by the end she's something else entirely. She's the villain, and it's fabulous.

Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is a maudlin teen who feels invisible next to her popular step-sister Taffy (Liza Soberano). Her mother died recently, and her father quickly remarried the manipulative and self-righteous Janet (Carla Gugino) who nitpicks Lisa's every flaw. After a disastrous party where she's embarrassed in front of her crush, Lisa walks home through an abandoned cemetery and confides in her favorite gravestone, one that features a handsome bust of a young man. That night, lightning strikes, and The Creature (Cole Sprouse) rises from the grave to find the girl who loves him.

As Lisa finds herself protecting and helping The Creature, she slowly discovers that she can protect and help herself. As his body becomes less decrepit, she becomes more confident. She starts dressing to please herself and embracing her own style. She discovers her own power, heals wounds with her family, and discovers that the perfect guy might not be perfect for her. It would be the plot of a romance novel ... except for the whole thing where Lisa and The Creature murder a bunch of people in order to repair his body and cover up their crimes. Lisa is fully complicit in these crimes, and comes to delight in punishing the people who hurt her. She part Carrie, part Molly Ringwald, part Chappell Roan.

If the filmmakers had made everyone in Lisa's orbit evil, it would be easier to root for her. But Lisa's step-sister, Taffy, is a genuinely nice person who wants to help Lisa and doesn't deserve any of the terrible things that happen to her. It complicates the movie in a way that not everyone will like. Personally, I love that Lisa goes bad. It's like the origin story of Cruella DeVille or Elvira. Diablo Cody, who wrote this movie, is known for complicated young women who don't always do what is best for them. She's also known for a certain campy aesthetic, which is turned up to 11 here. As Lisa's hair gets bigger and her skirts get shorter, the whole film goes neon. The sets and costumes are fantastic, with lots of visual detail that would reward a rewatch.