Kathryn Newton Has A Crush On A Living Corpse In The Lisa Frankenstein Trailer
The high school world is one of pure chaos. What else would you expect when you pack a bunch of teenagers pumped full of raging hormones into the same tight-knit space? It's the kind of environment that could lead to a student developing, I dunno ... a crush on a really cute corpse.
Okay, that's a new one, but it is, in fact, the setup for "Lisa Frankenstein," a film that marks Oscar-winning "Juno" and "Jennifer's Body" writer Diablo Cody's long-awaited return to the realm of high school cinema. The upcoming horror-comedy hails from first-time director Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late, great Robin Williams and an accomplished voice actor whose credits include "The Legend of Korra" and "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." In a since-deleted Tweet (via Entertainment Weekly), Zelda Williams described Cody's script as "the most bonkers, wonderful zombie script I've ever read." She's also explicitly cited fantasy comedies like Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her" and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" as inspiration for the film, which gives you a rough idea of the tone to expect here.
For more on that front, watch the newly unveiled "Lisa Frankenstein" featured above.
Lisa Frankenstein will lumber into theaters just in time for Valentine's Day
Ah, first love. There's nothing quite like it is there, especially when the object of your affection is a dead person. So it goes in "Lisa Frankenstein," a self-described "coming of RAGE love story" starring Kathryn Newton as a (per the film's synopsis) "misunderstood teenager" whose crush — a corpse portrayed by Cole Sprouse — is brought back to life through "a set of playfully horrific circumstances." Well, if that's not an ingenious variation on your typical meet-cute, then I don't know what is. Also, how great is it to have both Newton and Sprouse once again operating in the realm of twisted yet touching high school horror romance after their previous work on "Freaky" and "Riverdale," respectively? Now all we need is some moody, overwrought voiceover narration from Sprouse and we can truly get this party started.
While it was obviously inspired by Mary Shelley's 1818 gothic masterpiece "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," Cody and Williams' film is otherwise very much its own lumbering beast, as you can see from the first-look footage. Its cast also includes Liza Soberano, Henry Eikenberry, and Joe Chrest, as well as one of our currently reigning Scream Queens, Carla Gugino (fresh off her deliciously macabre turn in "The Fall of the House of Usher"). The film will bow in theaters on February 9, 2024, making it just about the perfect viewing option for those looking for something to watch on Valentine's Day.