| Focus Features | Release Date: February 9, 2024 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
15
Mixed:
22
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews
Feb 7, 2024
And that’s perhaps the most amazing thing about Lisa Frankenstein: its instant timelessness. Sure, it may be a pastiche, or a love letter to previous eras, or any other euphemism for cinematic recycling, but that doesn’t prevent it from being just as much a singular creation as any of its forebears, sidestepping derivative rehashing in favor of an original take on teen angst that isn’t bound by its homage.
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SlashfilmFeb 7, 2024
It's as if Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams took Sprouse's "I'm a weirdo" speech from "Riverdale" and turned it into an entire movie to prove the point. For all of its fantastical elements of undead boyfriends and tanning bed magic, there's a genuine message about how ungodly difficult it is to be a teenage girl in all of its forms, but that gallows humor is one of the strongest coping mechanisms to employ.
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Feb 7, 2024
There’s still plenty of originality in the mix, if only because of the boundaries pushed: Easily the most exciting moment of watching Lisa Frankenstein is discovering just how far Cody and Williams are prepared to take this story (which is to say, to places you just might not expect). That daring attitude is the spark which brings the monster to life — and it’s a monster you can learn to love.
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Feb 8, 2024
Feb 8, 2024
Not as memorable as the ’80s and ’90s high-school romps and creepshows it pays tribute to, there's still lots of gory fun to be had with director Zelda Williams’ feature-length debut thanks to Newton's electric lead and the sparks she throws off opposite Cole Sprouse’s game portrayal of a reanimated corpse.
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ColliderFeb 7, 2024
Grounded by exceptional performance across the board, a rich and funny script, and confident direction, Lisa Frankenstein is a delightful film. It doesn’t break a lot of new ground (unless you count the many graves that are dug up throughout its 101-minute runtime), but it does manage to frequently subvert expectations of horror, comedy, and romance movies alike. All-in-all, it’s a bloody good time.
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Feb 9, 2024
For a film that’s rooted in genre tropes, there’s no genre atmosphere to visually anchor down the film’s themes. With the spectacle fizzled out, visually Williams’ film isn’t enough to take it over the edge and make it memorable. Still, first-time direction hurdles aside, it’s a serviceable, fun goth romp.
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Feb 7, 2024
From “Freaky” to the upcoming “Abigail,” Newton is quickly becoming one of horror’s freshest faces, and “Riverdale” veteran Sprouse showcases a gift for physical comedy with what amounts to a silent-movie role. His Creature alone is worth the watch, though the movie’s breakout gem is Soberano, who brings scene-stealing verve as the protective Taffy gets caught up in her sibling’s shady business.
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Feb 13, 2024
Half-written, halfhearted and half-witted, it is characterized by the film’s marketing team as an homage to the best of 1980s cinema. Instead, it plays like an empty-calorie parody of the worst of the era, a rudderless cinematic pastiche that passes off random 1980s references as punchlines and which — in spite of its “Frankenstein” concept — never quite comes alive.
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Feb 8, 2024
Cody gets a little subversive with it all — Lisa’s stepsister, Taffy, for instance, is not at all what this kind of movie usually serves up, and that feels refreshing. But the rest is pretty predictable from the start, and so it starts to wear a little thin after a while, a title in search of a story.
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Feb 7, 2024
Lisa Frankenstein has some surface similarities to films such as “Weird Science” and “Edward Scissorhands,” but the gross-out gags involving Zombie Boy are more disgusting than hilarious and the scares are few and far between. Turns out Lisa Frankenstein’s creation might have been more interesting in her imagination than he is as a walking corpse.
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RogerEbert.comFeb 7, 2024
There is a curious datedness, monotony and lack of excitement throughout “Lisa Frankenstein,” that feels dull despite its preferred power-ballad “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon, and colorless in spite of its magenta-heavy production design. In its best moments, Williams’ debut feels very much like its central monster—undead, but with no place to go. It’s a cosmic disappointment.
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The GuardianFeb 8, 2024
To its credit, Lisa Frankenstein wears its inspirations on its black lace sleeves, never feigning true originality but there’s only so much looking back we can handle without things being pushed at least a little bit forward. In bringing a subgenre back from the dead, Cody and Williams could have used a little more life.
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