Shocktober 2026 - Lisa Frankenstein (2024)
“When you cry it smells like a hot toilet at a carnival!” – Lisa
(Here we go with the second of this year’s Shocktober offerings on the Alternative Takes theme. This is the first of four Frankenstein movies I have scheduled, which aren’t really Frankenstein movies. But hey, this is Alternative Takes after all, and anything is possible.)
Okay, let’s clear something up, her name isn’t Lisa Frankenstein, it’s Lisa Swallows. In fact, there isn’t really a link with Frankenstein in this at all as far as the story goes (But there are some fun easter eggs to look out for.) It’s a black comedy, only a couple of years old that I had fully intended to see at the cinema, but it came and went before the opportunity arose. One thing that strikes me watching this film is how much it looks and feels like a Tim Burton film. His whole aesthetic seems to ooze from the screen. I was reminded particularly of Edward Scissorhands in tone. Even the leading actor Cole Sprouse has an un-nerving resemblance to Johnny Depp.
The Burtonesque feel kicks in from the title sequence, which by means of animation tells the story of a lonely lovelorn man in the Victorian Age who dies a bachelor after the girl he loves leaves him for another man, and he is then fatally struck by lightning. He is buried in a bachelor’s graveyard and is forgotten as the years pass.
The year is 1989, and a young girl is taking wax rubbings of some of the gravestones. One, which she has taken has the name of Frankenstein on it, but it doesn’t (as far as I’m aware) refer to the marker it’s draped over, which is the girl’s favourite. (More about what he’s actually called later.) This is the grave of the young man in the titles. The girl is Lisa played by Kathryn Newton (who we’ll get to see again this Shocktober). The only other person I can think of who’d be able to pull this role off as successfully as Kathryn Newton is Jenna Ortega.
Lisa is a complicated girl. Her fashion choices lean toward Goth, as if her choice of hobbies didn’t already tip us off. She’s still coming to terms with the fact that she saw her mother hacked to death by a maniac. Her father has since remarried a self-absorbed woman named Janet (Carla Gugino) and she has a stepsister Taffy (Lisa Soberano) who means well, but tends to be oblivious to what’s going on around her. Case in point, she drags a reluctant Lisa to a party, where Lisa’s crush Michael (Henry Eikenberry) will be. Lisa is accidentally drugged with a spiked drink and nearly sexually assaulted by her high school lab partner Doug (Bryce Romero). She flees the scene, ending up at the bachelor graveyard, where she goes to the grave of the young man she’s been visiting. When she’s done talking and leaves, unknown by her a bolt of lightning hits the grave, and revives the corpse as kind of a zombie.
He makes his way to Lisa’s home. Now, we still don’t know his name – nor will we ever, because the cast list refers to him only as “The Creature”. I think this is an easter egg, to be honest. When Christopher Lee played Frankenstein’s creation in Hammer’s Curse of Frankenstein (1958), he was referred to as The Creature and wore exactly the same type of buttoned up frock coat seen worn here by Cole Sprouse. Anyhow, I digress, Lisa hides in the closet, until she recognises the intruder (there’s a bust of him on the gravestone where she spoke to him). He’s missing a few body parts, and this makes him self conscious, but it’s him. Lisa decides to hide him in the closet.
Janet continues to bully and belittle Lisa, to the point of threatening to have her committed to the asylum. At which point the Creature comes crashing out of the closet, killing Janet and cuts off her ear. After dumping the body, Lisa sews the ear on to her new friend’s head – but it won’t work without an electrical current. Luckily, there’s a malfunctioning sunbed in the shed outside which delivers shocks to anyone trying to use it. This is perfect. It also restores the Creature into looking a little less rotten. A plan is hatching.
Remember Doug, the handsy creep from the party? He is lured to the graveyard where he’s killed and his hand is removed and grafted on to the Creature with another rejuvenating sunbed session.
The police start their investigation and want to talk to Lisa, who doesn’t want to be interviewed. She goes looking for Michael, and when she finds him – he’s in bed with Taffy. She’s devastated, but the Creature has followed her and castrates Michael. It turns out that among the body parts the Creature is missing is…that, down there. So, retrieving the… appendage, Lisa sews it on for the Creature and they can now consummate their new relationship, after his session in the sunbed.
The cops, however, are closing in. Lisa’s only way out is to go in the sunbed herself and die.
The final scene has Taffy and Lisa’s father visit her grave which seems to have been damaged by lightning. On the stone “beloved wife” has been clumsily added. We fade to a beach, where the Creature is reading some of Shelley’s poetry to a heavily bandaged and revived Lisa, looking indeed like The Bride of Frankenstein.
Earlier on this year I saw The Bride at the cinema. This film is everything that film wasn’t. It’s smarter, slicker and darkly funnier. If you have a choice, go and watch this one. You’ll have a much better time.
Don't forget the Piercing the Veil Shocktober Special at this link.