I know Kathryn Newton from Supernatural series and saw her starring in this latest retelling of the classic Frankenstein monster movie. I like creature movies and I like Kathryn Newton, so I tuned in to watch how Lisa Frankenstein is going to create a monster and what kind of modern spin they are going to put on this classic story.
But movie never show how the Creature got reanimated. There was a lightning strike to the graveyard which could be the reason he got reanimated. But later I found out it wasn’t meant for the Creature, I’ll explain it later. This lack of focus on the Creature and how he acted later on behalf of Lisa made me believe that there is a hidden meaning to this story. So I came up with a theory. My theory was that Lisa’s mind manifested the creature in order to cope with her horrible acts. Here me out.
There’s a pattern in creature’s attacks
There’s not enough details to suggest that Lisa was involved in her mother’s death, but apparently there’s a rumor in the school that Lisa murdered her mother. That Goth girl Tamara said so to the police. Anyway let’s put that aside since we don’t know much about that incident. Every other death is directly correlate to Lisa because all of the victims hurt Lisa some way or another and the interesting thing is every body part creature took from his victims are related to how victims used to hurt Lisa.
Stepmother: first one to fall by the hand of the Frankenstein’s Monster was Lisa’s stepmother. She was a nurse who worked in a psychiatric hospital but she lacked awareness or deliberately ignored her stepdaughter’s trauma. She never fail to express that Lisa has mental problems due to her trauma. Her words were like poison to the ear. Interestingly choice of her colorful wardrobe wasn’t an accident. In the movie commentary, film’s director, Zelda Williams said that in natural world many poisonous creatures have vibrant colors to show other creatures that they are dangerous. So they chose colorful cloths for her to indicate her venomous or poisonous nature.
Lisa’s stepmom Janet used to use her poisonous words to verbally abuse Lisa. She hurt Lisa’s ears, so creature took Janet’s ear.
Doug Moranz: Doug is the one who took advantage of intoxicated Lisa during the house party. He was smaller than Lisa. It was a deliberate choice by the director Zelda Williams to cast a smaller and innocent looking actor as Doug. Zelda said in her experience, sexual harassments often come from non-threatening looking people. It is a valid point.
So Doug got handsy with Lisa and the creature took Doug’s hand. In this incident it was Lisa’s idea to take his hand, it wasn’t a coincident.
Michael Trent: Lisa had hots for this young gentlemen who was the editor-in-chief of the high school literary magazine, The Grackle. She confessed this to her stepsister Taffy who did not know who he was since he is not from her clique. But later when Lisa went to meet Michael at his home she found both Taffy and Michael in his bed. In Lisa’s eyes she saw it as Michael was cheating on her. Michael tried to explain to Lisa that he did not have feelings for her in that way. But enraged Lisa was hard to reason with. While Lisa was screaming at the couple, the Creature stepped in with an axe and cut off the very thing that Michael used for cheating.
Taffy: After cutting off Michael’s penis, the Creature turned to Taffy to attack. But immediately Lisa stepped up to save her stepsister. Even though Lisa found Taffy literally with her pants down, Lisa’s love for her stepsister was greater than her anger because Taffy was always there for her even when her own mother disliked Lisa.
Challenges to my theory
Attacking an old man: The Creature attacked an old man and stole his clothes. That old man had no relation to Lisa. (At least from viewers point) His only fault was to express his dislike towards the Creature. Even though he did not hurt Lisa directly, Lisa may had had a problem with her neighbors. Her neighbors seem to think that she was an odd child.
Attacking a police woman: when Lisa and the Creature went back to the grave where they buried their victims, a police woman who was guarding the crime scene came to warn them to step away from the taped off area. The Creature immediately picked her up and dropped in to the open grave.
Interesting thing is the Creature did not fatally attack them. He attacked to disable them because they were obstacles in the path to Lisa’s escape.
What the writer and the director have to say?
I was excited to see whether my theory has some merit or not. So I have checked the bonus content and commentary track of the movie. After listening to the people who created Lisa Frankenstein movie, I realized that their vison for the movie and my perception about the movie are totally different things. I’ll explain how I overthought stuff and came up with a non-existent theory.
The Creature, lightning and the crazy woman.
Kathryn Newton said that Lisa brought back the Creature from the dead. Did anyone see that happening? Me neither. As the viewers we have no clue why or how this man from 1800s come back to life. Lisa Swallows had no hand in reanimating the corpse. Only clue is that strange green lightning. According to the director Zelda Williams that lightning was intended for another person.
That other person is the crazy woman. In deleted scenes there is a scary woman who jumps from behind a grave stone and screams at Lisa Swallows saying “Get me out of hell!” I thought it was Lisa seeing her dead mother. But according to the director she was a separate character with no relationship to Lisa. She was there as a red herring. The strange lightning was supposed to hit her. But since her character makes no sense to people they had to cut her off. No wonder why.
Lisa accepted the Creature without much resistance
This undead fellow who was covered in filth came crashing through a window to Lisa’s home. Lisa was terrified of this horrific stranger for few minutes, tried to flee from him. But within short amount of time Lisa invites the Creature to her upstairs bedroom. Funny thing is she did this even before realizing that this is the man from her favorite grave.
Apparently I am not the only one who noticed this. Someone had asked the director why Lisa invites the Creature to her bedroom before she realize his identity. Zelda Williams answer is “As long as you knew something wasn’t threatening, I don’t know why you wouldn’t. Or at least that’s me. I would absolutely invite the friendly zombie upstairs.”
Mainly those two things: no explanation for the creature’s reanimation and Lisa’s quick acceptance of him led me to believe that the Creature could be a figment of Lisa’s imagination.
A man from 1800’s driving a car from 80’s
The Creature had died in 1837. That date is on his grave stone. As Lisa mentioned, that was the era of bicycles with one big wheel. But he somehow knows how to remove an anti-theft device and drive a car. With my theory it really doesn’t matter because it was Lisa doing all these things and she knows how to drive a car. To be honest I didn’t even think much about how stepmom Janet’s car ended up in a random location, away from home. I though Janet had parked it away from home and walked back to deliver her rant describing how she was going to put Lisa in to a loony bin.
Apparently there was a scene to show how Lisa and the Creature dump Janet’s car away from home. But that scene got removed. Director explains “there was originally a whole scene where the kids moved Janet’s car and like dropped it off somewhere else so that they would believe that you know she was still out of the town. But we found it didn’t really needed. It was fine to imply that the car was left somewhere else.”
In my opinion a very brief scene of Lisa and the Creature dumping the car while Lisa giving driving lessons to the Creature could have solve this mystery and confusion.
Lisa Frankenstein’s resemblance to Carrie
According to the writer Diablo Cody, Lisa’s character supposed to show a submissive girl finding power and that power corrupting her to become murderous. In her own words she describes the transformation of Lisa Frankenstein as “Lisa is probably the most powerless, the most submissive lead that I’ve ever written, so it was especially satisfying to watch her become confident and murderous, even.”
Her description remind me of Stephan King’s Carrie White. How an innocent, meekly girl turn into a murderous, powerful villain. But in this movie I did not see such character development. I felt like Lisa was always an odd girl and the Creature only brought out her Goth phase. She did not became murderous because of some pent-up rage or trauma like in Carrie’s case. Lisa was just nonchalantly standing beside the Creature when he was doing all the murdering.
Fun fact: there was a Carrie homage in the movie. Apparently there were lots of fake blood in the dick cutting scene. But they had to digitally remove most of fake blood in order to retain PG – 13 rating.
Am I complaining with this long rant? Absolutely not. I have thoroughly enjoyed the movie. In fact I have already watched it 3 times. With its 80s vibe, dark humor, and perfect cast, Lisa Frankenstein has a certain charm to it. I’m just bummed out that my theory has no merit to it.
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