In the mood for a humorous flick with nostalgia, the undead, and girl power? From the mind of Diablo Cody (“Juno,” “Jennifer’s Body”) comes “Lisa Frankenstein,” another dark comedy. Kathryn Newton stars as the titular Lisa, a teenage girl seeking love turned mad scientist, alongside Filipino actor Liza Soberano, who plays Lisa’s stepsister and friend. Cole Sprouse rounds out the cast as Frankenstein’s monster, Lisa’s reanimated love interest who is a long-forgotten dead person in the cemetery that Lisa hangs out in. He is brought to life after a lightning storm strikes his gravestone.
I talked to director Zelda Williams about the film and her thoughts on genre-bending, female depictions, and being a multiracial adult.
This is not the first directorial role for the Filipino American. Though Williams notes that she’s still early in her career and can’t be as “choosy,” this film was right up her alley. “I really lucked out with this one, and I’m genuinely so floored that it even exists. For me, one of the things that I’ll always look for is an unexpected [factor in] either tone or a genre-straddling situation. Any scripts I look at, that is very important to me,” she says. “I can’t really say that I’m ready to just have both feet firmly planted in one genre when I want to explore all of them.”
Williams’ previous filmography includes directing a music video for the singer JoJo and the CW’s “Kappa Kappa Die,” a film about murders in a sorority house. With this film lacking the scare-based jump scenes, “Lisa Frankenstein” is more a comedy and romance at its core. Although there is a monster in it, he is actually quite lovable. The daughter of the celebrated late comedian Robin Williams notes that the horror genre never scared her, but that this film — a dark comedy — and its humor was more of a challenge.
“I didn’t really even grasp how much I had been kind of avoiding [comedy] up until I couldn’t…
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