Lisa Frankenstein review – lumbering teen zombie romcom by Diablo Cody

‘Few solid jokes’: Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse in Lisa Frankenstein. AP Photograph: Michele K Short/AP

Cobbled together from the cleavered-off body parts of numerous 80s horror-lite teen comedies (I’m not sure I have ever seen a film that more desperately wants to be Heathers), this Athena-poster-hued, girl-meets-corpse romcom never fully reanimates. It’s a misfire from Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, who usually manages, at the very least, to inject a few solid jokes into her material.

Kathryn Newton stars as Lisa, an introvert even before her mother was murdered, her father remarried and she found herself with a new school and a judgmental, lemon-faced stepmother (Carla Gugino). Lisa finds it hard to socialise, so she spends her spare time in the local abandoned cemetery. But then a midnight wish backfires and a lumbering, malodorous corpse lurches into her life. On a poorly explained whim, Lisa hides him in her wardrobe; he becomes her confidant and her partner on a neighbourhood killing spree.

Meanwhile, Lisa inexplicably morphs from mousey shy girl to supercool goth vamp overnight. And if the central character isn’t consistent or at least credible, what chance does the rest of this sloppily paced, tacked-together mess have?