Understanding the Conclusion of ‘Lisa Frankenstein’: Does Lisa Return from the Dead?

Lisa Frankenstein is available for streaming on Peacock, and it’s time for viewers to take notice of this enjoyable new horror comedy. The film offers a mix of Hot Topic-style fashion, deceased partners, and a hilariously clever joke. What more could one want?

Crafted by Diablo Cody, known for her work on Juno and Jennifer’s Body, and directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams, Lisa Frankenstein features Kathryn Newton in a delightfully campy horror performance. Sharing the screen with Newton is Cole Sprouse, who impressively conveys emotions despite his minimal dialogue.

While Lisa Frankenstein didn’t win over critics, holding a modest 51 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, its release on Peacock offers a chance for its target audience to discover it: those who appreciate a darker aesthetic.

Be sure to watch until the very end of the movie, so that you don’t miss that brilliant dick joke. And if you get lost along the way, don’t worry, Decider is here to help. Read on for an analysis of the Lisa Frankenstein plot summary and the Lisa Frankenstein ending explained.

Warning: Major spoilers for Lisa Frankenstein ahead. Duh!

Lisa Frankenstein plot summary:

The year is 1989. Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) recently lost her mother to homicide and has moved in with her dad’s new wife and family. Lisa, a death-obsessed goth teen, doesn’t exactly fit in with her rancorous new stepmother Jancet (Carla Gugino) or preppy new step-sister Taffy (Liza Soberano). She spends her days at the gravestone of a Victorian man named Frankenstein, telling him her secrets and dreaming of sleeping beside his desecrated corpse.

Then, miraculously, a jolt of electricity revives that corpse. Suddenly, Lisa finds herself the proud owner of a decaying, but very loyal, undead companion (played by a near-silent Cole Sprouse). He’s missing a few body parts, but after the Creature (as he is credited) kills Lisa’s abusive stepmother (she deserved it!), and cuts off her ear, Lisa discovers those missing body parts can be re-attached with a quick jolt of electricity from her family’s faulty tanning bed. It makes a certain sense: Electricity is what re-animated his corpse, so that’s what’s need to re-animate the missing body parts… if they can find replacements. Now Lisa and the Creature just need to find some donors willing (or not) to part with appendages.

Their next victim is a kid named Doug (Bryce Romero), who attempted to rape Lisa at a party earlier in the movie. Lisa lures Doug to the cemetery and the Creature chops off his hand and murders him. Yay, now the Creature has a new and a new hand! He looks and sounds more and more human with each jolt. But the house of cards is starting to fall apart. Lisa’s dad and Taffy are searching for the missing Janet. The police question Lisa about Doug’s disappearance, because witnesses saw them together before he vanished.

Lisa realizes that the walls are closing in and that she will likely go to jail—and perhaps even be sentenced to the death penalty. She doesn’t want to die a virgin, so she tracks down her longtime crush—a sensitive, artistic boy named Michel (Henry Eikenberry)—in the hopes of having sex with him. The Creature is clearly upset and jealous by this plan, but Lisa doesn’t seem to realize it. But when she walks into Michael’s house, she finds her step-sister Taffy having sex with Michael. That bitch! She knew Lisa liked him!

The Creature rushes into the bedroom, and cuts off a naked Michael’s dick, killing him. Lisa stops the Creature from killing Taffy, too. The Creature runs off with his freshly-chopped penis, while Lisa escorts a terrified Taffy away from the crime scene. Lisa thanks Taffy for always being nice to her and accepting her into her family. Then Lisa goes to find the Creature at the graveyard, to put an end to the madness.

Lisa Frankenstein ending explained:

Lisa can’t bring herself to kill the Creature. Instead, she falls into his arms and realizes that he loves her. She asks him to make love to her, and he reveals he doesn’t have a penis. That’s why he chopped off Michael’s! Lisa swoons. “You cut it off for me?” What a gesture.

To the tune of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” Lisa sows the penis onto Michael, and she and the Creature make love. It is, arguably, one of the greatest dick jokes of all time. In a previous interview with Decider, screenwriter Diablo Cody said that the movie was always going to end that way.

“From the beginning, when I was writing this movie, I knew that [Lisa] was going to be acquiring different parts for Cole and repurposing them,” Cody said. “She has the hand from a boy who’s hurt her, and she gives the hand to Cole. She has the ear of her stepmom who doesn’t listen to her. And then, finally, at the end, it’s like—she must acquire this penis from this guy who she feels has dismissed her. I don’t know why, but I just I always knew it had to end with her sewing a penis onto The Creature. I was very dedicated to that vision.”

After they consummate their love—with the police closing in—Lisa locks herself in the tanning bed and has the Creature electrocute her to death. Before she goes, she gives the Creature a note that reads, “Death is temporary. I’ll love you forever.”

In that same interview with Decider, director Zelda Williams thought the note was key to balancing the movie’s campy tone with the fact that Lisa takes her own life at the end of the movie. “She knows that, basically, [killing herself] is so that people stop hunting them down, in a Bonnie and Clyde kind of way,” Williams said. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t be back. It’s why that note I think was so important. We threw around a couple versions of the note, but I really liked, ‘Death is temporary. I’ll love you forever.’ That was very much the vibe of where she was at. She’s like, ‘This is just for a moment. I’ll see you in a bit. I’ll see you later.’”

And of course, Lisa does see the Creature again. In the last scene of the movie, Taffy and her father visit Lisa’s grave. Taffy notices that Lisa’s grave denotes her as a “Beloved wife,” which confuses her, but she lets it go. Sharp-eyed viewers will also notice two candy peach rings on the grave, which are the same rings that Lisa and the Creature gave each other before having sex. So apparently they are married!

The camera pans to reveal the Creature sitting on a nearby bench with a bandaged-up Lisa lying in his lap. The Creature looks very human and speaks in a clear voice as he reads Percy Shelley’s To Mary out loud. Lisa cracks open her zombie eyes, meaning that she has been resurrected. The implication is that with time, she too will regain her humanity, as the Creature did, and the two of them will live happily ever after as undead creatures together. The end!