Like Frankenstein’s monster himself, the tropes of the man-made creature just can’t seem to stay dead. Luckily, Lisa Frankestein is a ludicrous, hysterical, and pastiche-smattered adaptation that – pardon the pun – really kills the delivery.

Lisa Swallows (Katheryn Newton) is an intelligent social outcast goth whose failure to connect is mostly attributed to witnessing her mother’s brutal murder at the hands of a home intruder. When she’s sexually assaulted at a high school party, she flees to a graveyard in the woods that has become a place of solace for her. One odd lightning storm and a drug trip later, a body from that graveyard has reanimated, and is set on becoming Lisa’s lover. He’s just missing a few parts – but never to be deterred, Lisa and the corpse set about collecting these appendages and slowly returning him to his former glory. As the body count rises and getting caught becomes increasingly likely, the unlikely pair romp through the sky-high camp and deadpan comedy to deliver a puddle-deep horror-comedy that’s so incredibly funny, it’s scary – or is that reversed?

It’s apparent here that the entire cast (including Cole Spruce, Carla Gugino, Liza Soberano, and Joe Chrest) was having a fantastic time making this movie, but Katheryn Newton’s performance here in particular proves that her vapid and vacant turn as Cassie Lang in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) was a product of poor writing and direction, and clearly not indicative of her body of work. Newtown seems to be carving out a niche for herself in horror-comedy, having delivered handily in Freaky (2020) and additionally starring in the upcoming Abigail (2024). (One can only hope that Marvel learns how to employ her talents fruitfully. I mean, come on – Young Avengers is right there.) Considering the majority of her screentime is spent opposite of an undead mute, her demonstration of moving from a shy, socially awkward writer to a confidently dark, sex-postive murderer contains real depth and is very entertaining to watch, despite the brevity of the screenplay and speed at which this transformation must occur. At roughly 100 minutes, Lisa Frankenstein is the shortest film I’ve seen in a while, and it’s all the better for it; concision in storytelling is essential.

For a movie about hacking and slashing body parts, it is tame in the execution. The PG-13 rating prevents a Tarantino situation, but I think that the absurdity of this movie could have used a bit more of a bloodbath. As the vaporwave aesthetic demands, needle drops are abundant, one of the funniest featuring Jeffery Osborne’s “On the Wings of Love” blaring over a slow motion castration. Regarding those particular parts, this movie is also sexually charged – but again, it is mostly tame because of the MPAA rating. It’s a teenager’s view of sex: exciting, mostly awkward, and completely unconcerned with the details.

With a story that’s sewn up tight by the time the credits roll, the only question I was left with was why this film was released in February, when it is clearly fodder for a massive Halloween hit. I was unable to find anything indicative of a release change due to the strikes, so I’m simply left to assume that the angle was never meant to be Halloween, but rather, Valentine’s Day. In a way, that makes sense; Lisa Frankenstein shows us that love means “until death do us part” – and even then, it’s debatable.