This is an interesting one that prompted a variety of thoughts that are still settling in my brain.

There’s certainly nothing horrifying or terrifying about it. It leans into the comedy, but for the first half hour, it’s a kind of Disney channel comedy. That lasts until people start getting killed, including by having their genitalia cut off. I don’t think Disney ever went in that direction.

Here’s the basics on the plot: a girl named Lisa Swallows (another choice I don’t think Disney would’ve made) is adapting to the new family her dad married her into after her mother was murdered. Her step sister takes her to a party where she consumes a copious amount of some kind of psychedelic alcohol. She makes her way home, but eventually discovers that a corpse from a nearby cemetery has come to life. But, because we’re not really operating in normal reality, Lisa finds the whole thing kind of charming, and takes to dressing up this corpse and confiding her secrets in him.

One of the largely mute corpse‘s main concerns is that he’s missing certain body parts. At first accidentally, and then deliberately, Lisa starts pertaining these needed parts from living people. (This might remind viewers of a much more somber film, directed by Lucky McGee, called “May.“)

So that’s all well and good. Basically, a kind of goofy dark comedy.

But I can’t escape noticing what I feel is a political edge here. Lisa ends up doing some pretty terrible things in pursuit of helping her new zombie friend. And the movie seems to let them happen without making a lot of judgment. I was actually reminded of an old 90s dark comedy, something that came in the wake of Tarantino‘s films, called “Very Bad Things.“ It was one of those films where none of the characters have any redeeming qualities, which always makes it tough to find someone to root for. (The nicest character in Lisa Frankenstein is kind of an airhead.)

But I think, or at least suspect, that the creative forces behind Lisa Frankenstein would argue we should be rooting for Lisa. I think their argument would be something like the modern young woman has been so unfairly put upon by patriarchal society that they’re justified in doing just about anything to pursue their pleasures. The ends justify the means and all that.

Except, I’m also sure the filmmakers are aware such criticism would be coming their way. So maybe that’s not what they’re saying.

Is Lisa a good guy or a bad guy in this film? Or perhaps there’s some commentary that such simplistic moral concepts don’t exist?

(Usually one can tell how a character is supposed to be judged by their eventual fate. But that’s a little tricky in this case, for reasons I don’t want to give away.)

Suddenly, this Disney knock-off is hefting a lot of philosophical weight.

All that said and done, there were plenty of laugh out loud moments for me and I would give it a strong recommend.