When "Juno" was released to critical and commercial acclaim in 2006, you'd be hard pressed to find a discussion of the movie that didn't mention how its screenwriter used to be a stripper. Diablo Cody's extremely distinctive – some might say "annoying" – dialogue earned praise. Yet the fixation on her past as a sex worker hinted at a weird, sexist double standard among even the film's defenders. This led to a perhaps inevitable Diablo Cody backlash, which hit by the time her second movie, "Jennifer's Body," was released. The prickly, absurd dialogue people loved in "Juno" was lambasted in "Jennifer" and the film flopped at the box office. Cody has continued to have a healthy career but it seemed like she'd never reach the heights of her debut again. In the intervening fifteen years, "Jennifer's Body" has been reclaimed as a feminist cult classic. This is probably why someone decided to give another horror/comedy from the writer a shot. Adding to "Lisa Frankenstein's" hype was Zelda Williams – the daughter of the late, beloved Robin Williams – making her directorial debut with it. Unfortunately, "Lisa Frankenstein" was ignored at the box office back in February. I probably would have watched the movie anyway but, when I realized it is technically part of Universal Studios' on-going attempt to reboot their classic monster characters, as the film was released by Universal subsidiary Focus Features, I knew I had to catch up with it.
When Lisa's mom was murdered by a home intruder, it didn't take long for her dad to move on and remarry. Now, gothy Lisa is stuck in a new town with no friends, a bitchy stepmom, and a perky cheerleader stepsister named Taffy. She spends most of her time making gravestone etchings in a local abandoned cemetery and pinning for a hunky guy named Michael. Following a disastrous party, a bolt of lightning strikes the graveyard and resurrects the resident of Lisa's favorite grave. She soon takes the shambling corpse in, befriending him. When the stepmom threatens to ship Lisa away, the monster spontaneously murders her. This begins a wave of killings, Lisa and the Creature offing the people who annoy her and stitching parts from the bodies onto the rotting revenant. Lisa quickly gets in over her head, as her undead friend grows more human.
Despite the title, Williams' film doesn't actually have much to do with the classic "Frankenstein" story. Lisa isn't a mad scientist trying to create life. There's no grave robbing and only a little after-the-fact stitching together of body parts. The corpse's resurrection happens through a magical moment that is never explained and not done intentionally by Lisa. The film mostly draws from Shelley's text in the idea of an outsider striking back at the society that rejects it, making the "Frankenstein" story into one of alienated teen girl wish fulfillment. Lisa's dad is clueless and her stepmom is a narcissistic bitch but, at the same time, the teenage girl is hardly suffering. Without being especially heroic, a monster man falls into her lap who is willing to kill everyone who displeases her. He's completely devoted to her and, after multiple visits to a rejuvenating tanning bed (a very silly plot point one just has to go with), even pretty cute by the end. Lisa does get comeuppance of a sort for her misdeeds but the film remains entirely on her side. "Lisa Frankenstein" is essentially a morbid take on the magical boyfriend premise. A manic pixie dead boy, if you will.
More than anything else, the film is kept afloat by an able-bodied cast. Kathryn Newton, after giving a similarly enjoyable performance in "Freaky," shows that horror-comedy is a genre she excels at. She makes Lisa awkward enough that you can see why she's an outcast while still making her a likable, kind of cool protagonist that the audience can root for. She does have a way with Cody's stylized dialogue, getting laughs out of nothing lines. Cole Sprouse has little dialogue as the monster, expressing his considerable emotions through his soulful eyes and slouching posture. His vaguely Keaton-esque body language is another way this film recalls early Burton/Depp collaborations. Carla Gugino is also fabulously obnoxious as the evil stepmom, while Liza Soberano walks a very careful line in making Taffy exceptionally perky without her being annoying.
Even among the classic horror nerds who care about such things, the films Bela Lugosi made at Monogram Pictures are not usually that highly regarded. The nine films have a cult following but even their defenders admit they are exactly the kind of quickly churned out B-movie schlock that sadly defined most of Lugosi's later career. So imagine my surprise when, a few years back, one of these notorious movies actually managed to crack the They Shoot Zombies, Don't They? list of the one thousand greatest horror movies of all time. That would be "Voodoo Man." Even though the film has subsequently fallen off the list, the title still stuck in my head. When looking for a Lugosi movie to sample this year, I already had this one in mind. Upon discovering that fellow classic horror icons John Carradine and George Zucco also appear in "Voodoo Man," I knew I had to check it out.
Young female motorists are disappearing out in the California forest. The culprit is Dr. Marlowe, who has his henchman at the only gas station in the area point the girls to an isolated road, where a device deactivates their car. They are then abducted by two more of Marlowe's goons. The girls are carried to a chamber under his mansion, where Marlowe uses voodoo rituals to transfer their life force into his lifeless wife. When the ceremony inevitably fails, the girls are rendered as mindless zombies. Got all that? Screenwriter Ralph is hired to write a film based on this strange case. Soon, his fiancée Betty and her cousin Sally are targeted by Marlowe, making Ralph a part of the story he was hired to fictionalize.
It's also greatly amusing to me the way "Voodoo Man" mashes together a bunch of different horror tropes. This is one of the final films Lugosi made for Monogram and it's clear, by this point, that the screenwriters were just throwing a bunch of shit around. The devious bad guy in a spooky old house, with creepy servants, attempting to resurrect his wife was already a cliché by 1944. ("The Corpse Vanishes" used all of these same elements.) This is combined with the sci-fi aspect of Marlowe's car stopping machine, housed inside a secret lab not seen anywhere else in the movie, and the convoluted plot point of the misleading gas station. Though none of this has anything to do with Haitian folk magik, a voodoo element is awkwardly latched onto the rest of this plot. Producer Sam Katzman and screenwriter Robert Charles clearly weren't worried about consistency or internal logic. Yet this random assembly of stereotypes becomes an unpredictable game of classic horror free association for long time fans.
The plot of Tod Andrews' hero wanders in and out of the movie, until it's time for him to lead the police to Marlowe's lair in the last few minutes. He's mostly here as a way to connect the two damsels in distress. Andrews' Ralph being a "scenario writer" for "Banner Pictures," led by a man known only as "S.K.," introduces a bizarre meta element. The movie then ends by suggesting this story will be turned into a movie called "Voodoo Man," starring Bela Lugosi. Such an epilogue truly proves that Monogram was simply fuckin' around with this one, throwing in dumb in-jokes to amuse themselves while delivering a hastily assembled product off the B-movies conveyer belt. Offbeat touches like this existing within a hodgepodge of worn horror clichés, populated by a cast of genre legends happily hamming it up, makes "Voodoo Man" a good time for fans of this particular strain of utter nonsense. Great cinema it obviously is not but watch enough schlock like this and you start to really appreciate the weird moments. [7/10]
"The Hat" follows author Jay Stratton, gripped by writer's block and fearful of being a literary one-hit wonder after his first book. For inspiration, his agent loans him the hat of his hero, prolific author Stephen Bachman. When Jay wears the hat, he finds his creativity explodes. He slips into a trance and does nothing but write for days on-end, soon pumping out bestsellers. The constant rush of ideas destroys his personal life with his girlfriend. After a meeting with Bachman, who has been reduced to a shriveled invalid begging for his hat back, Jay begins to wonder what he's really wearing on his head.
From the moment the name "Stephen Bachman" is mentioned, I was really worried "The Hat" was going to be one of those "Creepshow" episodes devoted totally to referencing better, more famous horror stories. However, this one quickly starts to stand on its own. Every writer is terrified of starring down the blank page. The idea of a simple charm that makes you an unstoppable literary titan is irresistible. This is "Creepshow," however, so "The Hat" is a Faustian bargain. The way the hat gives Jay a rush that results in an obsessive drive to write, while causing him to neglect his relationships and personal hygiene, brings another energy-boosting substance to mind. One the real "Stephen" "Bachman" is certainly familiar with. This trade-off brings lots of other ideas to mind too, about the fragility of the work/life balance and the pressures of success. Watching Stratton – played by a likably neurotic, nasally Ryan Beli – discover the sacrifice he's made for success and uninterrupted writing prowess is a predictable but satisfying journey. "Creepshow" can't have a segment without some sort of squishy monster however. The last act of "The Hat" gets amusingly gross as the true nature of the titular chapeau is revealed, in typically gooey fashion. This definitely feels like one of the more E.C. Comics influenced installments of "Creepshow," though with a tinge of cosmic horror and eighties style creature effects.
While "The Hat" is predictable in a fun way, following its premise to its absurd conclusion, "Grieving Process" is much too maudlin for that. From the minute April is attacked, with a clear bite left on her neck, we can guess what she's become. The fate of her little sister, a disposable subplot, is easily to deduce. So is the true identity of the attacker, once Richard unknowingly meets them and falls for their bait. "Grieving Process" could've still been meaningful, if it dug more into being a metaphor for the way trauma can change a person. Instead, Richard and April are never developed enough to make an impact. His transformation from forlorn husband to serial killer is hard to buy, simply because we don't know or care enough about his devotion to his wife before this point. This segment is based on a short story by Mike D. McCarthy and one imagines the inner lives of these characters are more fleshed out on the page. The episode is well directed, Kailey and Sam Spear producing some colorful images, and does feature probably the grossest gore "Creepshow" has packed in yet. But it is – if you'll excuse the pun – not much of a meal. [The Hat: 7/10 / Grieving Process: 5/10]
With the revelation that Chucky is in the White House, "Let the Right One In" sees our young heroes hatching a plot to get into the nation's capital. Lexy reaches out to Grant Collins on social media, appealing to his bereaved side. The plan works and Jake, Devon, Lexy, and their teacher-turned-foster-mom are soon in D.C. Meanwhile, Chucky brutally murders the president's secretary in the Oval Office. This causes newly hired head-of-security Warren Pryce to enact a cover-up, fearful news of murders in the White House might effect President Collins' chances at re-election. First Lady Charlotte is the only other person who knows about this.
"Let the Right One In" sees John Hyams back in the director's chair, after handling last season's "Going to the Chapel." Since Hyams specializes in intensely choreographed violence and thrills, it's not surprising that this episode features more action than the season's first. There's a nicely tense moment of Pryce finding evidence of Chucky's movements. Similarly, an earlier scene between the presidential brothers plays up on the doll's eeriness. However, "Chucky" knows what its fans want to see. The sequence of the doll killing the secretary with a letter opener is gloriously over-the-top in its goriness, escalating from a geyser of blood to a grotesque decapitation. Hyams' ability to turn cinematic murder scenes into tense displays is also shown during the less bloody but no less brutal strangulation that follows. It doesn't hurt that we actually have some attachment to the people who are killed, making their passing much more meaningful. (Though I'm probably sad to see the secretary go because she's played by Steffi DiDomenicantonio, who I've had a crush on for years.)
While logic has never exactly been a concern in this franchise, the idea of Chucky operating in the White House does raise some questions. Namely, a serial killer knocking people off in perhaps the most scrutinized building in the country would probably be detected very quickly. "Let the Right One In" attempts to cover for this with the introduction of the paranoid Warren Pryce. Gil Bellows plays him as a very strict weirdo, who seems almost delighted to be involved in a government cover-up. The idea of this show delving into conspiracy theories and "X-Files" shit could be fun, if it continues to play it as absurd comedy. If the focus remains on Charlotte's anxiety over being involved in such an affair, and the increasingly unlikeliness of these events, I'll like that. Hopefully it doesn't bend towards convoluted, soap opera shit instead. [7/10]
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