The Lazarus Effect

The Lazarus Effect follows several researchers, including Olivia Wilde’s Zoe and Mark Duplass’ Frank, as they attempt to perfect a technique designed to resurrect deceased patients, with bloodshed ensuing after the researchers employ this technique to bring one of their own back from the dead. There is, to an increasingly prominent degree, little within The Lazarus Effect that wholeheartedly works, with the relatively promising nature of the movie’s opening stretch paving the way for an erratic narrative that misses far more than it hits. The effective performances and smattering of creepy moments are rendered moot as the film progresses into its increasingly silly second half, with the decidedly implausible nature of the movie’s central twist compounded by a certain character’s almost incomprehensible behavior in its aftermath. It doesn’t help, either, that filmmaker David Gelb has infused The Lazarus Effect with a distinctly generic feel, with the run-of-the-mill vibe especially pronounced during the movie’s everyone-runs-and-hides-in-the-dark third act. And although scripters Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater briefly touch upon intriguing ideas involving the afterlife – of which, to be certain, the movie could’ve used much more – The Lazarus Effect ultimately comes off as a thoroughly unmemorable and disappointingly lazy horror endeavor.

** out of ****