It seems like these days, teenage girls only want one thing, and that’s a long-dead Victorian boyfriend roused from his grave by an ardent wish and a strike of lightning. He’s sweet, he’s chivalrous, his tongue has fallen off so he can’t speak — dreamboat alert!

It’s a setup that’s a little bit “Freaky Friday” and little bit “Night of the Living Dead,” but in “Lisa Frankenstein,” writer Diablo Cody and director Zelda Williams take Mary Shelley’s iconic horror text and juice it up with “Heathers”-inspired dialogue and a romantic hero in the mold of “Edward Scissorhands.” But this spooky-ooky 1980s-set romance has a thoroughly modern sensibilitye.

Kathryn Newton stars as Lisa, an odd outcast with a predilection for hanging out in the cemetery, leaving trinkets at the grave of a handsome young dead guy. She has an evil stepmother (Carla Gugino) and a clueless father (Joe Chrest); her stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano) is a chipper cheerleader earnestly concerned with Lisa’s popularity or lack thereof.

Try as she might, Taffy just can’t make Lisa fit in, but it’s only when Lisa starts to embrace standing out that she starts to find her power. It’s largely thanks to her new beau, the reanimated hunk from the cemetery (Cole Sprouse), who shows up on her doorstep, caked in bugs and rot, and encourages her to embrace an edgy new goth princess look. He needs a makeover and a few new parts himself, so Lisa and her Creature have to resort to sordid, murderous means to acquire the limbs he’s lacking.

At a certain point, “Lisa Frankenstein” loses sight of the characters and becomes more about the central gambit and the metaphor of the monster as a man devoid of toxic masculinity, literally sewn and zapped into Lisa’s ideal mate. The script fumbles a complicated emotional through line about the trauma of losing one’s mother violently, and careens off into a doomed lovers story, a “supernatural born killers,” if you will.

Still, there’s enough verve in the concept and performances, and in Williams’ exuberant direction, to carry “Lisa Frankenstein” through. Assembled lovingly from many different parts, it’s Williams’ hand that flips the switch on “Lisa Frankenstein,” and make no mistake, it’s alive.

Movie details: Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, sexual material, language, sexual assault, teen drinking and drug content; 101 minutes. Grade: B

Cole Sprouse, left, as the Creature and Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows in “Lisa Frankenstein,” directed by Zelda Williams and written by Diablo Cody.

Focus Features