I was in college when "The Lazarus Effect" released, and for one reason or another, I never got around to watching the film. Eight years and two double shots of vodka later, I found myself scrolling through Amazon Prime one fateful night (May 14, 2023) trying to find something to watch, and I see that "The Lazarus Effect" is free. Huzzah! Seemingly the Gods have answered my prayers, and feeling appropriately tipsy, I settled in, got under some blankets, and clicked "Play." Talk about the biggest mistake of my life.
Wow, wow, and I must say again: Wow. "The Lazarus Effect" is about "a group of medical researchers discover a way to bring dead patients back to life." It's an asinine, ridiculous concept, but starring the beautiful Olivia Wilde, as well as Mark Duplass - a personal favorite actor of mine - I figured that the movie would work, at the very least, as a vessel for dumb fun. That couldn't be further from the truth, as "fun" is nowhere in this film's vocabulary. So, let's talk about its sins.
"The Lazarus Effect" is a mercifully short film at 83 minutes, thank the Lord. And with such a small runtime, you'd think that the movie would move at a brisk pace, being full of all the horror shenanigans that one could ever want. "Ha!", the movie seems to laugh in our face. "Ha!" Because, this film is neither quickly paced nor scary. With a whopping 38 minutes going by before the so-called horror actually takes place - by that point coming too little, too late, as the movie is, by all intents and purposes, almost over. So, whenever Olivia Wilde comes back from the dead, maybe possessed or maybe just evil, you won't find yourself caring about what happens next because the movie took way too long to get to that part.
How are the scares? Nonexistent. With cheap jump scares, generic visuals, and bloodless kills, the movie boasts an incredibly boring and by-the-numbers layout that we have all seen done before in much better films. And with all of that said, I'm done writing about this movie: I do not recommend "The Lazarus Effect," and I regret sitting down to watch it, and the only reason it gets two stars out of one is because of how beautiful Olivia Wilde is.
Wow, wow, and I must say again: Wow. "The Lazarus Effect" is about "a group of medical researchers discover a way to bring dead patients back to life." It's an asinine, ridiculous concept, but starring the beautiful Olivia Wilde, as well as Mark Duplass - a personal favorite actor of mine - I figured that the movie would work, at the very least, as a vessel for dumb fun. That couldn't be further from the truth, as "fun" is nowhere in this film's vocabulary. So, let's talk about its sins.
"The Lazarus Effect" is a mercifully short film at 83 minutes, thank the Lord. And with such a small runtime, you'd think that the movie would move at a brisk pace, being full of all the horror shenanigans that one could ever want. "Ha!", the movie seems to laugh in our face. "Ha!" Because, this film is neither quickly paced nor scary. With a whopping 38 minutes going by before the so-called horror actually takes place - by that point coming too little, too late, as the movie is, by all intents and purposes, almost over. So, whenever Olivia Wilde comes back from the dead, maybe possessed or maybe just evil, you won't find yourself caring about what happens next because the movie took way too long to get to that part.
How are the scares? Nonexistent. With cheap jump scares, generic visuals, and bloodless kills, the movie boasts an incredibly boring and by-the-numbers layout that we have all seen done before in much better films. And with all of that said, I'm done writing about this movie: I do not recommend "The Lazarus Effect," and I regret sitting down to watch it, and the only reason it gets two stars out of one is because of how beautiful Olivia Wilde is.