The Lazarus Effect (2015)
Directed by David Gelb
Medical researcher Frank, his fiancee Zoe and their team have achieved the impossible: they have found a way to revive the dead. After a successful, but unsanctioned, experiment on a lifeless animal, they are ready to make their work public. However, when their dean learns what they've done, he shuts them down. Zoe is killed during an attempt to recreate the experiment, leading Frank to test the process on her. Zoe is revived -- but something evil is within her.
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5 films that influenced The Lazarus Effect
What critics say influenced The Lazarus Effect
The answer turns out to be a whole slew of horror tropes (one half expects “Flatliners”-era Kiefer Sutherland to show up ranting, “Our sins have come back in a physical form!”), but no genuine scares, and certainly nothing visceral enough to threaten the bloodless PG-13 rating.
No siree Bob and Betty, as we ought to have learned from previous cinematic efforts like Pet Sematary (1989) and Flatliners (1990).
They look very handsome throughout - much like the hot young scientists played by Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland in that '80s staple, Flatliners.
"Critical" Analysis: Some people are going to go on and on about how similar (some would say "slavishly imitative of") The Lazarus Effect is to 1990's Flatliners .
What begins as an intriguing blend of such diverse sources as Frankenstein , the 1990 Julia Roberts/Kiefer Sutherland thriller Flatliners , and a 1966 episode of Star Trek ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") turns into a standard-order assortment of "boo!" moments and freakish makeup.
It made a name for itself as the modern giant of horror films, producing such truly frightening titles as Insidious, Sinister and The Purge.
The Lazarus Effect is the latest offering from Jason Blum's wildly successful boutique studio, which gave us the Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious, Sinister, and The Purge.
This limited-location shocker comes from the producers of such economical horror franchises as "The Purge" and "Insidious."
Compared with other low-budget horror films from Blumhouse Productions, this is neither as sharp as The Purge or Oculus nor as dumb as the Paranormal Activity series.
With little of the verve and thematic reverence of 2011's " Insidious " and 2013's " The Purge ," the film's opening act, concentrating on studies involving the increasingly disoriented and aggressive revivified dog, fails to impress.
THE LAZARUS EFFECT is a low budget horror film from Blumhouse Productions, a company which has done such movies as “The Purge,” “Sinister,” and “Oculus” so you know they’re capable of interesting stuff.
From here the film collapses into a miasma of clichés ripped from seemingly random sources: The Exorcist (1973), slasher movies, and even Tarsem Singh’s The Cell (2000) with Eva being literally dragged into traumatic memories in Dr. Zoe’s past.
Flatliners plus (choose ONE) A: Hollow Man, B: Lawnmower Man, C: Lucy.
This bit is sort of like "Lucy," except boring.
But here’s where it turns into the horrifically deformed love child of one of the worst X-Men movies and Lucy.
Zoe’s brain, however, is now operating at “ Lucy ” levels of functionality, and that, combined with her brief but unforgettable experiences in the afterlife, have turned Zoe into a weaponized and decidedly less human version of her former self.
The movie is a terrible recycling of old ideas, ranging from classics like Frankenstein and The Monkey's Paw to 2014's Lucy , not to mention the routine effects and jump-scares.
The screenplay by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater is a pastiche of elements cribbed from other films ranging from "Frankenstein" to " Flatliners " to, oddly enough, last summer's action hit " Lucy ."
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Completed back in 2013 and originally set for release via Lionsgate, the low-budget pic subsequently landed at Relativity, which just last year teamed with producing shingle Blumhouse to distribute the imaginative and unsettling “Oculus.”