WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Jennifer’s Body and Lisa Frankenstein.
Few female killers in the wide world of horror have been able to match the impact of Jennifer Check. Played by the incomparable Megan Fox, Diablo Cody’s teenage seductress rises from the ashes of a hideous crime and returns to wreak bloody vengeance on the teenage boys in her small town. Jennifer’s Body was initially dismissed as a vapid vehicle for a gorgeous star – an unfortunate parallel to the film’s own message – but Karyn Kusama’s teen horror comedy has finally found a devoted audience that appreciates its biting satire and unflinching look at the hell of teenage girlhood. Fifteen years later, Cody returns to the genre with a new heroine searching for power in a world built to dismiss her. Directed by Zelda Williams, Lisa Frankenstein follows a teenage girl desperate for acceptance who finds love in the arms of a resurrected corpse. Connected by a distinctly female rage, both young women shred the stereotypes they’ve been trained to uphold but only manage to find freedom in the grim embrace of death.
At first glance, Jennifer Check has it all. She’s not only one of the most gorgeous young women on earth, she’s a popular flag girl with guys lining up to date her. But Cody’s impeccable script gives us a peek behind this hot pink curtain. After years of dating, Jennifer knows exactly how people see her: boys want to sleep with her, girls want to be her, and that’s about it. The only person she can trust is her best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried). This nickname (short for Anita) hints at an unhealthy attachment, but we quickly learn it’s Jennifer who clings to the friendship. Needy has a solid relationship with her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) and seems to get along with the rest of her classmates. By contrast, Jennifer treats the rest of the world with disdain. Either openly cruel or actively flirtatious, she seems to only relax when she spends time with Needy.
Early in the film, Jennifer drags her best friend to a local concert for company while she flirts with the lead singer of an emo band. She’s delighted when he seems to like her too, but he’s far from the dream date she’d imagined. After a devastating fire, he and his bandmates drag her out to the woods and sacrifice her to Satan, casting a spell for fame and fortune. They literally use her for her body then toss her aside – an extreme example of the way she’s been treated for most of her life. But the spell goes wrong and Jennifer returns from the dead. Because she is not the virgin the ritual requires, she emerges from the woods transformed into a powerful succubus. Seeming to embody the rage of a woman scorned, Jennifer begins using her body as a weapon and hunts down unsuspecting boys to feast on their flesh. No longer consumed with outside approval, Jennifer uses reductive male desires to her advantage and finds that she is now the one in control.
Cody’s second entry in the burgeoning coming-of-rage subgenre, Lisa Frankenstein, shares the same universe as Jennifer’s Body though the titular heroines never meet. Lisa (Kathryn Newton) is a shy girl in the late 80s who hasn’t spoken much after the brutal murder of her mother. Rather than provide support, her father has moved on quickly and married a cruel woman named Janet (Carla Gugino) who clearly dislikes her awkward new stepdaughter. She constantly accuses Lisa of acting out and threatens to send her to a mental hospital. By contrast, her daughter Taffy (Liza Soberano) is a delight. Though slightly bubble-headed, she seems to genuinely want a connection with Lisa and goes out of her way to help her make friends. But Lisa needs much more than a well-meaning stepsister. After essentially witnessing her mother’s brutal murder, she needs therapy and the freedom to “act out” until she’s able to process her overwhelming rage and grief.
It’s no wonder Lisa spends so much time in a local cemetery. Her world was ripped apart by a shocking death and it’s natural that she would feel most at home among the dead. Dreaming about the corpse buried under her favorite grave marker, she longingly whispers “I wish I was with you” as the night erupts in a lightning storm. The Creature (Cole Sprouse) this wish resurrects takes her remark to mean she wants a relationship with him, but Lisa actually means something much darker. She wishes she were dead. Unable to express her pain and constantly told to move on, the only thing that seems appealing to her is a lifeless existence six feet underground. She whispers these words while walking home from a disastrous party. Moments after arriving, she’s dosed with hallucinogens and cowers on the floor as powerful visions flood her senses. Seeing her in distress, her lab partner “rescues” her, but this is only a ruse to get her alone and take advantage of her altered state. Clearly feeling as if she has no one left to turn to, Lisa visits her favorite grave and wishes for death.
The Creature arrives like the answer to a prayer. His tears may be smelly, but Lisa hides him in her room and helps tend to his reanimated flesh. Unable to talk, he provides the non-judgmental company she needs and the traumatized girl begins to open up. She talks about her favorite music, characters on TV, kids at school, and eventually, her mother. As she helps the Creature put himself back together, it seems she’s actually healing herself. This undead boyfriend also proves to be a powerful protector. Anyone who threatens Lisa must deal with the Creature and Janet becomes the first to fall under his deadly hammer. Her death serves a practical purpose as well and the odd couple begin using the body parts of their victims to replace pieces of the Creature’s decaying form. At first shocked, Lisa begins to find empowerment with this arrangement and targets the boy who tried to assault her. Like Jennifer, she is using a body reborn to exact her rage on an uncaring world.
Lisa Frankenstein opens with the titular seamstress looking in the mirror before going out for the night. Taffy tries to improve her style, but Lisa seems less than thrilled with the results. When she returns from the disastrous event, she punches her face in the mirror, fed up with having to pretend she’s okay. Jennifer is also tired of hiding her feelings. Before going to the dance, she smears foundation all over her sad and sallow face. The logical reason for her lackluster appearance is hunger – she’s reached the end of her feeding cycle and needs to eat another boy soon. But a deeper reading reveals exhaustion and depression. This is the true Jennifer, a weary girl who believes her worth is tied to her appearance. Tonight is merely one more night in which she has to paint on a gorgeous face to earn validation.
Jennifer’s transformation is not visible to the naked eye. Only Needy sees the reanimated monster spewing black liquid all over the kitchen floor. The rest of the world sees the same beautiful girl with a newfound swagger. Never known to be shy, Jennifer now seems to be leaning into her seductive persona. With a fearless demon possessing her body, she’s lost the fear that she will never be enough. Lisa also finds confidence when she befriends the Creature. As they raid her closet for clothes to help him blend in, he suggests an old Halloween costume, a lacy black frock she calls a “skeezer pirate” dress. Lisa reluctantly tries it on and a new look is born. Combined with a hat and a bright red lip, Lisa seems to find confidence in the aesthetics of death. No longer hiding from her grief, she finds strength in wearing her pain like a badge of honor.
While Lisa’s murder spree brings her closer to the Creature, Jennifer’s ever-growing body count drives her best friend further away. Jennifer cannot target the guys who actually hurt her so she settles for any innocent boy to fall into her grasp. When Needy balks at her confession, Jennifer sets her sights on Chip, drawing a powerful line in the sand. Needy must now choose between trying to save her friend from a man-eating demon and saving the life of the boy she loves. Needy ultimately loses them both, but absorbs a bit of Jennifer’s power and sets out for revenge. She tracks down the boy band and slaughters them, exacting a steep price for what they did to her friend. Lisa’s murder spree ends in similar destruction. No longer able to cover up the Creature’s crimes, she plans her own death in the tanning bed that brought him back to life. A final scene shows the couple relaxing together as Lisa’s reanimated body heals. She has embraced death as a way to spend eternity with the man she loves.
Though both stories end in the grave, they have decidedly different tones. Jennifer’s Body is ultimately a tragedy, while Lisa Frankenstien ends on a note of hope. Jennifer has been so mistreated by the world that she becomes a monster. The boys she devours may be part of a dehumanizing system, but individually they have done her no wrong. When Needy stabs her in the heart, it almost feels like a release. In death, Jennifer finds not only freedom from the demon possessing her body, but the weight of a world who only values her for her beauty. Lisa also finds freedom in death. With the Creature waiting on the other side, she leaves behind her life of grief and dies to be with the only one who truly accepts her.
Cody opens Jennifer’s Body with the line “hell is a teenage girl,” a statement she explores in both films. Both Jennifer and Lisa just want to be loved for who they are. They become monsters not because they are bad people but because of the hell thrust upon them by the rest of the world. Though Lisa has found a soulmate, her tragedy lies in the fact that she can only be with him in death. Jennifer has found unconditional love in Needy, but she’s been too damaged by the world to see it. Neither Jennifer nor Lisa survives her film, but each death seems to bring about a release from the hell of teenage girlhood. We can only hope that, like the Creature, Needy will be waiting for Jennifer on the other side of death.
