Director David Gelb has done great work in the world of documentaries before (Jiro Dreams of Sushi), so while it seemed a little curious that his latest project, The Lazarus Effect, was a dramatic film that fits in the horror genre, it was at least encouraging to know that the man had talent. Even more encouraging was the cast of actors he put together. Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover—they’re all fan favorites who have done great work in interesting things before, so who wouldn’t want to see what they have to offer the latest entry in the dead-come-back-to-life horror sub-genre? Well, it turns out you wouldn’t, because despite the fact that this film was made by a talented director and features a talented cast, it’s still one of the more boring things that’s hit theaters in a while.
Even though all of the principals here are charismatic people, the script they’re working with is so inept when it comes to giving them interesting things to say or do that the talent and presence they bring to the film becomes a non-factor. You could have cast amateurs in this derivative snoozer and gotten largely the same results. The story here starts off with a group of doctors and researchers working to bring the dead back to life, which makes it firmly a descendant of the Frankenstein story, and then it takes a turn where it becomes a Carrie-esque story about a troubled girl getting brain powers, the combination of which basically makes it a take on The Dark Phoenix Saga from Marvel’s X-Men mythos; but it isn’t able to be half as interesting as any of its influences. If X-Men: The Last Stand didn’t combine a script as bad as this one with even worse execution while adapting the Dark Phoenix story, this would certainly be the worst version of it made. The people behind this thing should probably send Fox and Brett Ratner a thank you note for that.
The problem with the film, aside from the fact that its characters are anonymous blank faces, is that none of the scary stuff that follows their decision to mess with mother nature is remotely original or even presented with a new twist. This movie exists as basically a pastiche of clichéd, overused horror moments that we’ve all seen a thousand times before, and in lieu of building atmosphere, tension, or mood, it relies entirely on jump scares to get any rise out of its audience whatsoever. Seriously, entirely. Half of this movie’s run time is taken up of people either being startled by loud noises or looking for something scary one place and then having it suddenly appear behind them. If it wasn’t for the amazing canine actor who played Rocky the Sad Zombie Dog, The Lazarus Effect would have been a total dud.
