By Ava Steiner
“I can’t believe you didn’t like Lisa Frankenstein.” I had just watched the horror romcom the day before, and I had obsessively scrolled through all of my friends letterboxd reviews of it - poring through and trying to find any sense of negativity. Unsurprisingly, my cinema major friend gave it 3 stars. Now, I was sitting across from him in the dining hall, picking at my yogurt parfait, and receiving the answer of:
“I don’t know, it just felt like it wasn’t as self-aware as it should have been. Like, Bottoms felt like it knew its tropes, but Lisa Frankenstein played into them without commenting on it.”
The conversation continued on, but something stuck with me - why should a campy movie have to be self-aware to be considered “good”? Why must we poke fun at fun itself?
Sitting at a 52% critic score and 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the general consensus on Lisa Frankenstein seems to be an acknowledgement of an eventual cult classic status. This assessment seems to come from the perception of Lisa Frankenstein as the lovechild of movies like horror comedy Beetlejuice and black comedy Heathers, both cult classics in their own right, and both coming out a year before Lisa Frankenstein takes place.
The comparisons do make sense- Lisa Frankenstein follows outcast Lisa Swallows who helps her undead dream man, The Creature, come back to life. The movie evokes both the sardonic sense of humor found in Heathers and stylized supernaturalism of Beetlejuice. The film was written by University of Iowa Alumni Diablo Cody, inspired by the resurgence of love for her 2009 hit Jennifer’s Body, and directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, in her directorial debut. It stars Cole Sprouse (The Suite Life of Zach and Cody) and Kathryn Newton (Freaky, Paranormal Activity 4). The film is funny, campy, and memorable. So why are most of its praises about how appreciated it’ll be in five years?
I don’t just make these observations out of personal taste either-a piece of speculative fiction has to try very hard to be “worthy” of enjoyment. Speculative movies with dire tones and dramatic subgenres, such as Ti West’s “X” or Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” are more often respectable choices for speculative fiction favorites. But Lisa Frankenstein, with its wry sense of humor and over-the-top aesthetic, isn’t a contender for a movie with the most to say- even though it commentates on misogyny, female sexuality, and can be read as an overall allegory for unconventional relationships and the queer experience in the 80s. However, there’s another reason why Lisa Frankenstein isn’t taken seriously: We as an audience don’t know how to have fun anymore.
Post-ironic humor has left us commenting “is this satire?” under any TikTok with a genuine sense of comedy. As a collective, audiences have been going into media expecting everything to have a deeper sense of meaning, and presume to know a movie before it even premieres. Their need for context triumphs their ability to take a movie for what it is or how it makes them feel. Thus, unless a movie has awareness of its tropes and constantly parodies or references them, the film is considered “unworthy” or “unserious”. Enjoyment isn’t a factor, the biggest takeaway being a clever line on letterboxd and a three star review.
This isn’t to say that no one enjoys campy or fun movies anymore. Lisa Frankenstein did appeal to niche audiences, being Diablo Cody fans and Classic Universal Monster allusion fans alike. However, it will take us another shift in the entertainment sphere to truly bounce back to going into movies and leaving with a genuine sense of enjoyment. But for now, future cult classics will be relegated to university movie nights and IMDB watchlists.
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