The Lazarus Effect

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Runtime: 83 minutes

Directed by: David Gelb

Starring: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger, Donald Glover

From: Several different companies, including (unfortunately) Blumhouse

This sure was a Blumhouse movie. Even back then they would make… “slop” is a WAY overused word so “gruel” will be substituted instead. Why in the world would I give this a shot despite its poor reputation? I was always curious/puzzled that this gruel had an overqualified cast: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Sarah Bolger, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, and (for a minute) Ray Wise. After viewing, I’m still puzzled as to how this attracted such a cast, unless the putrid script went through a massive metamorphosis between casting and filming.

The plot: naïve goofballs working at a university create a Lazarus serum to revive animals. Of course Big Pharma becomes involved… for a minute, which was the extent of time that Ray Wise appears in the film. The film was actually OK in the beginning; however, when a human dies, someone else decides the worst and uses that serum to resurrect her, to predictable results… actually, I didn’t predict what happened afterwards.

Beforehand, I presumed this would be “inspired” by Flatliners; perhaps it was, as neither version of Flatliners has ever been tackled by me. However, I noticed a major inspiration was another film-one that came out not too long before The Lazarus Effect. That “another film” has never been seen by me either… but my late mother did one night on TV. That redacted movie I know becomes bizarre by the end-my mother was bamboozled. She might as well have seen Funky Forest, she was so baffled!

Me, I was baffled that Lazarus went in this direction; it was the wrong direction and that’s not even factoring in the illogic of the plot, how dopey all the characters became, the lack of any scares (even the plentiful jump scares didn’t make me jump nor scare me), the squandering of the premise-a true Blumhouse trademark-and how the 83-minute runtime was a hindrance as I barely knew the characters so when chaos happened, I didn’t really care.

There’s a decent idea or two but despite that, how bad the movie became after an OK start especially was an irritant. Even a fine score from Sarah Schachner (yes, of Prey and Predator Badlands fame) couldn’t elevate the What a waste of the cast; I hope THIS wasn’t what they signed up for and the story made unfortunate changes by the time filming began. But I’ve said too much about this disappointment, so best to forget the effect this gruel had on me.