Two films sit years apart on the surface, yet they pulse with the same restless energy of teenage fury and supernatural transformation. Jennifer’s Body from 2009 and Lisa Frankenstein from 2024 both sprang from Diablo Cody’s imagination, and she has now placed them inside one connected story world.
This article examines that confirmation, the creative threads that tie the movies together, and what it suggests about Cody’s growing body of horror work. We will look at the shared themes of girlhood turned monstrous, the stylistic choices that make both films feel like siblings, and the possibility of more stories ahead.
The Confirmation That Changes How We Watch Both Films
Fans of cult feminist horror have long sensed an uncanny kinship between Jennifer’s Body (2009) and Lisa Frankenstein (2024). Now that intuition has been validated by the films’ creator herself. Screenwriter Diablo Cody has officially confirmed that the two movies take place within the same narrative universe.
In a 2024 interview, Cody stated that she was “just declaring” Lisa Frankenstein to exist in the same world as Jennifer’s Body, even if audiences should not expect overt references or shared characters. The announcement may appear casual, but it retroactively reframes both texts as parts of a broader Cody horror cosmology rooted in adolescent rage, feminine monstrosity, and gothic romantic excess. That single statement invites viewers to reconsider each film not as a standalone oddity but as one chapter in an ongoing conversation about how young women process pain and power.
Feminist Horror DNA
Although the films never intersect on screen, they are bound by a shared affective logic. In Jennifer’s Body, Jennifer Check is transformed into a demonic succubus following a ritual sacrifice, weaponising her desirability into a mechanism of revenge. In Lisa Frankenstein, Lisa Swallows resurrects a Victorian corpse through lightning, grief, and obsession, constructing love from literal dismemberment.
In both narratives, girlhood becomes a supernatural force. Desire, betrayal, humiliation, and longing are not internalised but externalised as monstrous agency. Cody’s girls do not merely survive trauma. They metabolise it, converting emotional rupture into corporeal violence. This approach echoes earlier horror films that used the female body as a site of rebellion, from the telekinetic outbursts in Carrie to the shape-shifting rage in Ginger Snaps. What sets Cody’s work apart is the way she lets those transformations feel both grotesque and strangely liberating at the same time.
Camp, Gore, and Emotional Extremity
Stylistically, the films are unmistakably siblings. Cody fuses romantic grotesquerie with heightened gore and hyper verbal teenage interiority, producing horror that is as funny as it is feral. Camp functions here not as irony, but as method. It destabilises moral hierarchies, allowing female rage to appear excessive, messy, and unapologetically embodied. This tonal alchemy situates both films within a lineage of feminist horror that treats affect as weapon, spectacle, and narrative engine. The humor never undercuts the terror; instead it sharpens it, reminding us that laughter and fear often sit right next to each other when young women claim space for themselves.
A Timeline That Almost Works
Lisa Frankenstein is set in 1989, positioning it as a possible mythic prehistory to Jennifer’s Body, which unfolds in the late 2000s. There is no shared lore, no secret newspaper clipping, no lingering cameo. Yet the ideological continuity is unmistakable. This is a world that breeds monstrous girls, again and again, across decades. Placing the stories fifteen or twenty years apart lets Cody explore how the same cultural pressures on teenage girls evolve while the core impulse to fight back stays constant. The 1989 setting also nods to the era’s synth soundtracks and suburban anxieties, giving Lisa’s story a nostalgic texture that contrasts with the more contemporary bite of Jennifer’s world.
The Future of the Cody Horrorverse
The shared universe confirmation arrives amid renewed momentum for a Jennifer’s Body sequel. Director Karyn Kusama revealed in late 2025 that Cody is actively developing what she described as a “fun and crazy” continuation of the story. This reframes Lisa Frankenstein not as a nostalgic side project, but as a foundational text in an expanding feminist horror cycle. With both films now linked, any future entries could deepen the rules of this universe without needing to spell them out for viewers who already sense the connection.
Why This Matters
For over a decade, Jennifer’s Body has undergone critical resurrection, shifting from misunderstood flop to feminist cult classic. Lisa Frankenstein extends that legacy backwards, offering a gothic origin myth for Cody’s monstrous girls. Together, they form a cinematic lineage of teenage abjection, queer affect, romantic excess, and violent self authorship. Two decades. Two eras. One universe. And it is only just beginning. At Dyerbolical we have followed these threads closely, and the confirmation adds real weight to conversations about how horror can give voice to experiences that mainstream stories often silence.
Bibliography
Diablo Cody interview on shared universe, 2024.
Karyn Kusama comments on Jennifer’s Body sequel development, late 2025.
Jennifer’s Body, directed by Karyn Kusama, 2009.
Lisa Frankenstein, directed by Zelda Williams, 2024.
Analysis of feminist horror traditions in Ginger Snaps and Carrie.
Camp aesthetics in modern horror cinema scholarship.
Interviews with Diablo Cody on adolescent rage and monstrosity themes.
Critical reception history of Jennifer’s Body from flop to cult status.
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