The Lazarus Effect (2015)

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Directed by David Gelb

Screenplay by Jeremy Slater & Luke Dawson

Overall Rating 3.5/5

Plot 3.5/5

Writing and Dialogue 3/5

Acting 4/5

Makeup and Special Effects 4/5

Cinematography 3.5/5

Summary:

The Lazarus Effect opens with video footage of a dead pig lying on an operating table. A team of medical researchers are performing an experiment to bring it back to life. They inject it with a serum and hit the switch to their machine, but nothing happens. One researcher jokes about eating the pig, and then the pig starts to squeal briefly before staying dead.

The film follows a group of scientific researchers: Frank and his fiancé Zoe, Niko, Clay, and Eva who's filming a documentary on the research. They've created a serum called "The Lazarus Serum," and its ultimate purpose is to bring patients back to life after they've died during surgery to give doctors more time to save them. The scientists preform the trial by slowly injecting the serum into the subject's temporal lobe and electrocuting the subject 2-3 times until they are revived. They test their serum on a blind dog named Rocky. While their going through the trial, Eva, who's recording the documentary, claims to see the dog's ear twitch after one of the electrocutions. The scientists write it off as muscle reflex, but the dog soon revives. The couple, Frank and Zoe, decide to take Rocky home with them for observation. They notice that the dog's eyes are completely healed, but he is experiencing a loss of appetite and they can tell the dog isn't quite normal. He shows signs of aggression when they bring him back to the lab the next day. Clay is playing a computer game while Rocky is in a cage behind him. He hears objects clattering and turns around to find the kitchen completely ransacked and the dog's cage empty. Clay searches for Rocky, and when he finds him, the dog is snarling and looks as if he's about to attack. When the other scientists return, they don't believe Clay's story about the Rocky, writing it off as shock from coming back from the dead.

Later on in the film, the scientists' lab gets taken over by a group of men claiming to be from a major pharmaceutical corporation who bought the rights to their serum. The scientists are kicked out of their lab and don't have access to their security badges or their research, but Eva manages to take Rocky and keep her visitor keycard before the group of men notice. Frank and Zoe also kept a backup bag of the serum "just in case." They decide to recreate the experiment they did on Rocky and film it, using Eva's security badge to get in the lab and Niko's technological skills to hack the security cameras. When they do the first electrocution in the experiment, the lights go out and come back on to show Zoe dead on the floor. They try to perform CPR on her, but she isn't coming back. Her fiancé Frank is so devastated by Zoe's death that he decides to use the the lazarus serum to bring her back to life. At first, it doesn't seem to work, but after a few minutes, the group turns around and Zoe is sitting upright on the table. She seems to be in shock but regains composure after a few minutes. She claims to have been in hell for years even though she was dead for less than an hour. Frank brushes this off as the effects of the psychedelic compound DMT being released into her brain before her death, which happens to everyone.

Frank brings Zoe back home, and she notices her fingers darkening as well as the spot on her forehead where the serum was injected. She notices other things going wrong: when she looks in the mirror, the mirror smashes on its own; she also has a moment where she feels transported into her recurring nightmare. The nightmare is of her as a little girl standing in the hallway of an apartment complex looking at the door of a room that's on fire. There are hands grasping underneath the door, trying to escape, and little girl Zoe just stands there watching with an unknown object in her hand. When Zoe tells Frank of her experience, he writes it off again as the after effects of coming back to life. When Frank is talking to Zoe, she can hear his thoughts and finishes his sentence at one point. Frank is visibly disturbed, but Zoe seems to have no recollection of it even happening. When Frank leaves the room, she moves a pen with her mind and also begins to hear everyone's thoughts even though they're not in the room with her. She knows something is wrong.

When Frank and Zoe return to the lab, Zoe rests in a room alone with Eva. Eva leaves the room to let Zoe sleep, but when she walks out the door, she finds herself transported into Zoe's recurring nightmare. She sees the little girl standing outside the door and asks what the little girl is holding. The girl runs away, and when Eva gets close to the grasping hands under the door, one grabs her, and she snaps back to reality. She goes to tell the rest of the group, excluding Zoe, about what happened and shows them the burn mark where the hand grabbed her. Eva suggests that Zoe may be acting like this because her soul is trapped between our world and the afterlife.

Zoe's condition quickly progresses. Niko is alone in a room when Zoe appears behind him, and she asks him to make her "feel normal again" by kissing her. Niko refuses because she has a fiancé, and she proceeds to use her newfound telekinesis to force him into a metal cabinet and crush the cabinet around him, killing him. Zoe returns to the room to appear to be resting when the rest of the group comes in and asks about Niko. Zoe claims to know nothing, but Clay does't believe her. He starts yelling at Zoe, and then she telekinetically shoves Clay's e-cig down his throat, choking him. The group tries to save him, but by the time they get the e-cig out of his throat, he was already dead.

After realizing something is very wrong, Frank and Eva decide to inject Zoe with the compound used to put down animals. Frank leaves Eva to search for Zoe, and he finds her in the hallway crying. He walks up to her, and she turns around and crushes his head. Eva runs away after seeing this happen, and Zoe leaves to inject herself with the rest of the Lazarus serum. Eva is walking around the lab in the dark when she's approached by Zoe, and she transports her into the nightmare again. This time, Eva realizes the little girl is Zoe and finds that the object in her hands is a box of matches. She started the fire, and Eva convinces young Zoe that she can open the door to let the people out of the burning room. She does, and Eva is transported back to reality and injects Zoe with the fatal compound, apparently killing her. The fire department arrives at the lab and finds Eva, asking if she's okay. When she looks around him, Zoe is gone and the fireman turns out to actually be Zoe messing with her mind. Zoe kills her and injects everyone she's killed with her blood which contains the Lazarus serum.

Review & Comparisons

I personally liked this movie because of the religious undertones, which I find a good addition to any horror movie. The writers added a good amount of scientific information without overloading it and making it confusing. The scientific elements in this film reminded me a lot of "Herbert West - Reanimator." The plot was overall decent, but it would've been much better with a more complex story line that didn't progress so quickly. The film's story arcs went from 0 to 100 in a matter of minutes, such as how Zoe's condition evolved. She seems perfectly okay considering, and then becomes a full-blown soulless zombie almost immediately. The writers had very likable actors/characters at their disposal, and they didn't use them to their full potential. I do think they executed the hell/afterlife story trope rather well. They didn't over-spiritualize the idea, and they kept it logical and easy to follow. The Lazarus Effect was an overall decent movie with a lot of potential that wasn't executed as well as it could've been.