Marks the feature-length directorial debut of Zelda Williams, the daughter of Robin Williams.
When Janet, her stepmother, comes home, Lisa cries out, "Dammit! Janet!", the title of a song from The Rocky Horror Show, a stage production inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
As Diablo Cody has stated, the film is set within the same universe as her earlier work, Jennifer's Body (2009). The soundtracks for both films include cover versions of the song "I Can See Clearly Now."
In the closing scene a character dons rainbow braces, reminiscent of Mork from Mork & Mindy (1978). The film's director, Zelda Williams, is the daughter of Robin Williams.
For his portrayal of The Creature, Cole Sprouse spent several months in Los Angeles training with movement and mime coach Lorin Eric Salm. As the character does not speak in the film, Salm drew on mime techniques to teach Sprouse how to convey the character's thoughts, feelings and personality without words.
Lisa Frank stationery became hugely popular in the late 1980s. As Diablo Cody has said, the similarity in names is purely coincidental. Lisa's name was inspired by Weird Science (1985), which also contains references to Frankenstein and features protagonists who bring a love interest to life.
The film features two police officers, Officer John and Officer Waters — an unmistakable homage to the king of camp, director John Waters.
In one scene, Lisa mentions her "aunt Shelley", a deliberate homage to Mary Shelley, the novelist behind "Frankenstein".
Lisa says her favourite film director is 'Pabst'. Georg Wilhelm Pabst was an Austrian film director active from 1923 to 1956.
In the closing scene, the Creature is shown reading Percy Shelley's 'To Mary,' from the collection 'Posthumous Poems'. Percy’s wife, the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, gathered his unpublished poems and had them published two years after his death.
Her gravestone records a birth in 1971 and a death in 1989, indicating she was 18 when she died. The Creature's headstone lists only the year of death, 1837, so his age at death remains unknown.
The United States, where the film is set, does not have a custom of burying unmarried people or bachelors in separate sections of a graveyard or cemetery. There is a well‑known Bachelor's Grove Cemetery on the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois, which was established in 1844. However, the burial ground contains both married and unmarried interments of both sexes, and its name derives from the German family name Batchelder.
In the opening credits, a young Lisa creates a grave rubbing of the name "Frankenstein" — a technique that involves tracing the lettering carved into a headstone. The author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, famously learnt to write her own name in the same way, by tracing the lettering on her mother’s headstone.
Zelda Williams: provides the voice on Janet's self-help recording.
Lisa's doll is named after the dog of the actress who plays her, Kathryn Newton: "Starlight Rosebud Hella Good Boy Gonna Need a Big Bank."
The film is set in the year 1989.
Taffy's wardrobe was influenced by the late 1980s styles of Cindy Crawford and Phoebe Cates.
Fuddruckers is a US-based, fast-casual franchised burger chain established in 1979. It enjoyed considerable popularity throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
As an Easter egg, a Robin Williams album, Throbbing Python of Love, lies on the floor when the main characters first meet.
In a few of the later scenes, The Creature and Lisa are reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands and Kim Boggs in Edward Scissorhands (1990).
Andrew Levitt, who performs as the drag queen Nina West, released a song called 'Lisa Frankenstein' in 2019. It is unclear whether the film's title was inspired by that song.
The film was originally shot with an R-rating in mind, but it was decided that a PG-13 classification might attract a broader audience. Because of that, several scenes had to be trimmed or re-shot. In an earlier cut Lisa smoked a laced joint at the party rather than drinking a beer laced with PCP. Likewise, Lisa and The Creature were originally shown smoking cannabis in bed instead of drinking milk. Michael's death was far more explicit, with blood spattered across the walls, and Taffy had to be removed digitally. Blood was also erased from Taffy in the subsequent car scenes with Lisa, since she had been drenched in it originally. The moment of the axe striking Doug in the back was also taken out.
The reanimated corpse is referred to as 'The Creature' — the name used in Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel. In popular culture he is frequently called 'Frankenstein's monster', or simply 'Frankenstein', labels that do not appear in the novel.
When Lisa and the Creature finally consummate their relationship, the cover of the REO Speedwagon song "Can't Fight This Feeling" is performed by JoJo, who co-starred alongside Robin Williams in RV (2006) — Williams being the father of the film's director, Zelda Williams.
Cole Sprouse made his film debut in Big Daddy (1999), portraying a boy who opts to call himself Frankenstein.
A poster on Lisa's cupboard door shows a moon with a cannon-launched ship stuck in its eye. "Le voyage dans la lune," written, directed and produced by Georges Méliès in 1902, is often regarded as the first film.
Following the opening credits, the first scene closes in on a headstone that reads "Frances Owens", the same name as a character in the 1998 film Practical Magic.
Cole Sprouse portrayed Jughead Jones in Riverdale (2017), adapted from Archie Comics. Since 2013, Archie has published several Archie Horror series in which Jughead and other characters are transformed into zombies, vampires and werewolves.
The tune that plays when the Creature first enters her home is "Strange" by Galaxie 500.
On the bookshelf in Lisa's bedroom sits LOST SOULS by Poppy Z. Brite, a Southern Gothic horror icon of the 1990s. It was first published in 1992.
This production marks the feature film debut of Henry Eikenberry.
When the Creature kills Janet and removes her earlobe, there is a tiny diamond stud within it. The Creature is later seen wearing the stud. Taffy subsequently mentions the studs, recalling that her mother had said they would be a present for Taffy should she ever perfect a particularly difficult cheerleading move.
At the party, Michael's T-shirt displays the Friedrich Nietzsche quotation: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."
Taffy says she can't walk to the nearby party because she's "wearing jellies." Jellies are a type of footwear made from clear or glitter-infused PVC plastic, popularised in the 1980s by the Jelly Shoes brand. They are notorious for causing excessive perspiration, blisters and even cuts to the feet, since the plastic doesn't mould to the foot's shape and the moulded shoes can have sharp edges.
Michael Trent's name might have been inspired by the musician Michael Trent Reznor, of the industrial/electronic/gothic-rock-influenced band Nine Inch Nails.
The film is set in 1989 — the same year in which director Zelda Williams was born.
