University of Iowa Grad Has a New Comedy/Horror Movie in Theaters

A University of Iowa graduate has just seen her first film in six years released to theaters. The Oscar-winning screenwriter's latest is an homage to 1990s Gothic fantasies with elements of horror, comedy, fantasy, and coming-of-age.

If the name Diablo Cody sounds familiar, it's because she was behind the Michael Cera/Elliot Page comedy Juno from 2007. The critically acclaimed film won her the Best Original Screenplay Oscar the subsequent year. She followed that film up with the Megan Fox-led vampire film Jennifer's Body in 2009, Young Adult with Charlize Theron in 2011, and Tully (also starring Theron) in 2018.

Now, Cody is back with Lisa Frankenstein, which was released in theaters on February 9th, 2024. Billed as a "coming of RAGE" movie, Lisa Frankenstein revolves around a girl named Lisa (Kathryn Newton), who makes a wish in a cemetery that her crush, who happens to be a corpse, would come to life.

Low and behold, lightning strikes and the man known only as "the Creature" (Cole Sprouse) returns from the dead. However, he's missing a few parts. That's nothing murder can't fix!

The unabashedly wacky little fever-dream is an homage to Tim Burton films ala Edward Scissorhands and teen comedies like Heathers. My girlfriend and I caught the film opening night. She fell in love with it. I thought it was modestly successful, if held back by its desire to pay tribute to other movies and not necessarily stand on its own. I also wished it had been R-rated, instead of PG-13.

But even I, a total movie nerd, didn't realize until after we watched it that Diablo Cody is an Illinois native and a graduate of the University of Iowa. Cody grew up in Lemont, Illinois, about 30 minutes west of Chicago, and graduated from Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in Media in 2000.

While attending school, she worked in the acquisitions department in the main university library and graduated to do secretarial work at a Chicago law firm and was a proofreader for advertisement copy.

Prior to being a Hollywood screenwriter, Cody gained online popularity for her candid blog about her life as a stripper, which parlayed itself into a novel called Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Cody has several great films under her belt (seriously, don't sleep on Tully — it's streaming on Netflix) and a new one currently in theaters. Lisa Frankenstein made $3.8 million at the box office over Super Bowl weekend, a historically difficult weekend for theatrical movies. This is one of those films that will likely have a better, stronger life on streaming/DVD.

Lisa Frankenstein is now playing exclusively in theaters. Check your local listings for showtimes, and read more about Diablo Cody here.