By Robert Scucci
| Published
When I saw that The Lazarus Effect was streaming on Hulu, I had to give it a chance because I love low-budget sci-fi flicks– especially the ones about reanimating the dead and raising the ethical questions that come along with such a tried-and-true setup. Filmed with a meager budget of $3.3 million, I was even more excited because low-budget sci-fi horror films tend to be more ambitious with their storytelling because there’s not a lot at stake, financially speaking. Though a box office success that earned over $38 million upon its 2015 release, The Lazarus Effect is well acted but aggressively generic, raises important philosophical questions but never attempts to answer them, and has great practical effects but relies too heavily on cheap jump scares.
While I can’t say that The Lazarus Effect effectively accomplished what it set out to do, it has great cinematography for its budget, and solid enough characters to want to get emotionally invested in them. I just wish it stuck the landing because what had so much promise in its first act quickly goes off the rails and never fully recovers.
Human Trials By Happenstance
Centering on medical researchers Dr. Frank Walton (Mark Duplass) and his fiancée, Dr. Zoe McConnell (Olivia Wilde), The Lazarus Effect introduces their research, which involves a serum they’re developing called “Lazarus.” Originally developing a serum that would allow patients on life support to have a second chance at survival, they push forward with unsanctioned research on a recently deceased dog named Rocky because they have reason to believe that the serum can bring the dead back to life.
Working alongside Frank and Zoe in The Lazarus Effect are two students named Niko (Donald Glover) and Clay (Evan Peters), who assist in bringing Rocky back to life with the Lazarus serum. Joining the crew is Eva (Sarah Bolger), a videographer who’s sole task is to document their research.
When the university finds out about their experiment with Rocky, they seize all of the equipment, putting a stop to the research. Meanwhile, Niko comes to the startling realization that Rocky’s behavior isn’t quite right after being reanimated, as he’s now more aggressive than ever and often goes into long, silent trances between bouts of rage. Further research reveals that the Lazarus serum, which is supposed to eventually dilute itself after being injected into the brain, is now multiplying and evolving at an alarming rate.
Playing God With The Fiancée
Realizing how powerful the Lazarus serum is, the researchers break back into their facility to carry out further experiments before the operation gets shut down entirely. Zoe gets electrocuted to death in a freak accident, and Frank, without hesitation, injects her with the serum.
As you would expect, this impromptu human trial with Zoe goes terribly wrong when she comes back a changed woman, claiming to have witnessed hell before getting pulled back into the mortal realm. Zoe, like Rocky, exhibits signs of aggression, and as the serum takes hold of her brain in The Lazarus Effect, she picks up psychic abilities which she uses for destructive purposes.
Could Have Further Explored The Ethical Implications
The Lazarus Effect’s first act is brilliantly paced, leaving its second and third acts to further develop this initial setup. However, instead of exploring the research team’s dynamic as they grapple with the ethics of their controversial experiments, we get a film that resolves to shift its tone to a generic horror plot in which scientists find themselves battling an entity beyond their comprehension.
Choosing to shift lanes from sci-fi thriller to B-movie horror, The Lazarus Effect stops exploring the research and its consequences in favor of flashing lights, jump scares, and floating furniture that looks pretty cool on screen, but doesn’t offer anything to move the story forward in a thought-provoking way.
Streaming The Lazarus Effect
Storyline semantics aside, The Lazarus Effect is shot well, and some of the jump scares are actually quite effective, but feel out of place. Personally, I wasn’t looking for cheap thrills because I wanted a story that dug deeper than “zombie Zoe is on the loose and we have to stop her!” Clocking in at just 83 minutes, I wonder if they were just padding the runtime to get it to feature film length, and think that if they just stripped the story down to its most essential plot points, we’d have a solid featurette instead of what we got.
As of this writing, you can stream The Lazarus Effect on Hulu. For its cinematography and acting alone, it’s a worthwhile watch, but you may want to tap out by the third act because you’ve probably seen it all before at this point.
