The Lazarus Effect comes to us from the extremely prolific producer Jason Blum. You’ve seen this movie before with peppier actors, and not tethered to a visually uninteresting set that looks like a remainder from a 10-year-old episode of CSI. The remaining 98% of the movie, from the predictable jump scares, ubiquitous booms on the soundtrack desperate to create a whiff of drama, and the asinine, sequel-setting conclusion is totally by the book. Watching the telekinetically undead Zoe do away with this group in the locked-down science floor of the university, while wholly unmotivated, represents the film’s few moments of oomph. In addition to Duplass there’s the jokey-stoner Evan Peters (Quicksilver in X-Men), wide-eyed and (also) tank-topped Sarah Bolger (TV’s Once Upon a Time), and Donald Glover (aka rapper Childish Gambino). Zoe comes back, but she’s changed, and soon the rest of the team finds themselves on the business end of her post-human wrath. “I’m not going to lose her,” he states with a surprising lack of urgency, because Duplass, while a champion producer in the indie film world, has absolutely no business being the dramatic lead in this type of picture. Wouldn’t you know there’s an accident and, with no other options, Frank has to pump Zoe full of the creamy sludge. There’s only time for one last experiment, and the team must get it on video to prove that the magical white goop is their idea. “They took everything!” Zoe cries, and I suppose that includes her white lab coat, too, as the lithe Ms Wilde, playing a brilliant scientist, spends the rest of the movie in a tight tank top. Meanwhile, she’s having nightmares about melting dolls and charred hands because The Lazarus Effect is marketed as a horror film and you need to have some yucky imagery every few minutes or people get antsy.Įventually the project is yanked away from our small group, thanks to a weaselly Dean and the greedy corporate overlords behind their grant. ![]() He also gets really creepy and stares at Zoe in the middle of the night. ![]() His cataracts are cured, but he isn’t eating. ![]() The pair and their student volunteers (they are at an unnamed religious university) find success when they bring a dog back to life. Initially their study was meant merely to prolong a surgeon’s post-flatline window to “bring someone back,” but as so often happens in the lab (or in movies about labs) their discovery becomes so much more. Is playing God a good idea? Well, every story since the ancient Greeks says “no,” but maybe this time will be different? That’s the hope of two scientists, Frank (Mark Duplass) and Zoe (Olivia Wilde), who have just concocted some milky-white goo that, when zapped with a nice James Whale-esque bolt of electricity, can resurrect the dead.
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