The Lazarus Effect – Movie Review
The Lazarus Effect – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 27 Feb 2015
The Lazarus Effect is a horror movie about a group of scientists trying to bring dead animals back to life. They are partially successful, but after an accident results in the death of Zoe (Olivia Wilde), they hastily use their procedure to bring her back to life – with terrible consequences.
With a ho-hum story, dreadful dialogue and made-for-TV effects, there’s little to recommend The Lazarus Effect save for the effort of the actors. The entire cast sell their characters as best they can, with Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde and Evan Peters bearing the brunt of making pseudoscience and more sound impassioned and important. Even though you know, beat for beat, how the story will go, the performances almost go far enough to keep you invested.
The movie also manages not to be a found footage style, despite early warning signs as one of the characters is there just to document the experiment on video, and a lot of time is spent looking at security footage. It’s also pleasantly low on jump scares, though the ones that it does employ feel toned down because they are telegraphed right along with everything else.
If you’re dying for a movie that goes bump in the night, you could do worse than The Lazarus Effect. With a better script, this same cast could have made something very special.
Aaron and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
This Lazarus Effect is kind of intriguing and I have been a horror fan. So, I am going to put this film on my list of movies to watch.