Before we get started, I should say that I always try to avoid spoilers in my reviews. I hate losing the feeling of surprise that comes along with seeing a new film. That being said, I am making an exception for “The Lazarus Effect.” I am going to tell you just how bad this movie is with a specific example so that, in case you need convincing, you won’t go see this movie.
Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead in John 11.
This movie has nothing to do with that.
“The Lazarus Effect” tells the story of four scientists and a camerawoman who are working on developing a serum (that looks completely indistinguishable from milk) that can raise a dog from the dead. In the process, one of the scientists dies, and they try to bring her back to life. The cast of Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Evan Peters and Donald Glover is spectacular on paper, even if two of them take primarily comedic roles. The cast and premise is good, so how bad could it be?
Awful.
Unfortunately, all four of them took comedic roles without realizing it. There is almost no character development to make you care even a little bit about what happens to any of them. I don’t blame the actors, because Wilde was doing everything she could to save it. This time, the writing is to blame.
Spoiler time: they bring the dog back to life with the milk.
They’re super pumped and everything because it seems like their experiment worked, but after they do an MRI, they realize that the dog has an abundance of a chemical in his brain that makes him super aggressive. The next scene, Peters is in a room alone with the dog in the cage about to play video games. A loud crash comes from behind him and the dog’s cage is open. Instead of leaving the room like a sane person, he walks toward the tarp that growling is coming from underneath, and lifts it. The dog that we clearly knew was dangerous “unexpectedly” jumps out and pins Peters against the wall.
So this is how Peters is going to die?
Nope.
It cuts to a completely different scene where the scientists are in a room talking about it and the dog is magically in his cage. _How on earth did he get out of that?_
There is a recurring dream that Wilde’s character has that is referenced multiple times. Essentially, we know that she was in a fire as a child and she could have saved people, but she didn’t and is now haunted by that. Toward the end, the camerawoman is in the dream with Wilde child and it turns out that Wilde child was holding matches and actually started the fire that killed all those people. The camerawoman grabs Wilde child’s face and with full conviction says, “It’s not your fault.”
She started the fire. It is _absolutely_ her fault.
Also, Wilde’s motivation for killing everybody after she gets brought back to life isn’t because she brought back a demon or anything like that. She’s actually just throwing a hissy fit because she felt like she lived a good life and ended up in Hell anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, I love horror movies. However, they have to be smart. This movie asks the thought-provoking question of, “What if you could play God and raise the dead back to life?” But its answer seems to be something along the lines of, “The resurrected turns into a mind-reading Carrie and kills everyone.” Surely they could have thought of a more interesting answer than that.
Some of these glaring mistakes could be forgiven if it was actually scary, because then I would have been entertained. Unfortunately, David Gelb’s idea of scary seems to consist of flickering the lights a bunch and playing the music as loud as possible, which, coincidently, was the only thing keeping the audience awake. The “scares” are completely predictable, and I’m fairly certain that every single one of them was a jump scare.
Overall, this movie asks big questions and then falls into horror movie clichés. They even split up when there are two of them left against an insurmountable monster. Some shots are well-framed, but the atmosphere never feels claustrophobic. There are so many other bad things I could say about “Lazarus,” but I think I’ve gotten my point across. Don’t waste a few bucks and 84 minutes on this movie.
_Pass the Popcorn if:_ I honestly tried to think of a reason, and I can’t think of one. You don’t believe me that these things are actually in a movie, maybe?
_Pass it Up if:_ There’s any possible way for you to avoid it.