The Lazarus Effect

The Lazarus Effect opens up with promise but soon reveals itself to be nothing more than a generic horror movie that wants to use jump startles and intermittently flashing lights to startle, not scare, the audience. Its big ideas are thrown out the window, any attempt at good acting disappears, and any and all potential it had was disregarded in favor of blandness that's far funnier than it should be. This is a disappointing movie.

Hints at some potential early on, but in the end, the stupid plot of Lucy doesn't work any better when it's used to justify jump scares.

I bet the director is sitting in a therapist session right now, obsessing over why people didn't like this: 'But it had every single type of scare ever used in other horror movies, surely there was something in there for everyone!'

Oh, the wasted potential! I was really impressed by the beginning of the movie - the scientific jargon was well thought-out, as far as I understand anything about neuro science. Nothing kills suspension of disbelief faster than poorly written medical facts in a setting where medical science is the domain. However, I was extremely put off by the "fantastical" charades that ensued. Had it been more grounded on plausible scientific experiments going awry - it would have been more enjoyable.

A movie with an idea that doesn't execute or thrill. It feels like an old 50s sciency horror movie (or maybe a 'Twilight Zone' episode) where the idea is if you tamper in God's domain (e.g. resurrect the dead), then be prepared to suffer unintended consequences. Sadly, tampering in God's domain and the unintended consequences are rather boring here. Cliches about, like repressed Catholic guilt over a past accident and an evil corporation. A waste of the great Olivia Wilde and Evan Peters.

The Lazarus Effect is, apparently, boredom.

If only there was a way to resurrect this corpse of a film, amirite???

52.4.

I was really hoping for more from this. It definitely had promise from the start, but it failed to live up to it. **SPOILER ALERT** Why kill off the most interesting character first without giving them any resolution to their story arc? For that matter, why not give the other characters some decent development as well? Cheap, standard ending killed it for me, too. For what it's worth, I did like Donald Glover & Sarah Bolger in this.

The Lazarus Effect had no idea what it should have been. Really it seemed like it could have gone the scientific route and made a pretty good movie out of it, but it got way too paranormal for no apparent reason, and relied on jump scares and horror tropes. A wasted opportunity to improve upon Lucy, that instead went in an entirely different direction.

The scares really didn't pan out that well as a lot of things kept happening all the time so you got used to it. The idea was much better executed in Limitless.

It's a mild mess, more due to ambition than incompetence, and that's a forgivable offense.

All round uninspired jump-scary trash for the most part.

This movie really had no effect on me. It wasn't really that scary (except that dog standing over Olivia Wilde just staring at her was a little creepy) and it had a fantastic cast that really wasn't used well. Mark Duplass is one of my favorite actors but even he was underused in this film. Sarah Bolger is super cute, but for her to be a documentation character in the movie, she sure had a much bigger role than the others...

2017/06/20

Nope. Bad, bad, bad movie. Olivia Wilde is hot, but that's it. It's just a dumb idea and terrible friggin' execution. If a B-horror movie takes itself seriously and isn't able to provide scares, the whole thing goes off the rails way to quickly. If you don't have money, and don't have horror, then give me the laughs, laughs are cheap and they go a long way.

The black guy goes first, then the stoner, and ofc the virgin last. I'd say spoilers, but the film spoils itself.

Doesn't even make it to 80 minutes, which suggests that it got chopped to bits in the editing room or it was never aiming too high in the first place. But it works up a pretty good head of steam in its short running time, supplying a few genuinely creepy moments, and basically giving Wilde free reign to hustle through a gamut of high-volume emotions: rage, vengeance, terror, despair. She works hard and is fun to watch, and as "little movies" go, this one's worth a rent.

Cursory of course, but I love Olivia Wilde, so you have to consider the source. I also dig Jason Blum movies; I've liked more than I've disliked. I love the atmosphere in these movies. I do have to admit that the movie would almost have been better off if it had stayed about a dog with crazy psychokinetic powers terrorizing the city. But so far as I'm concerned, this is far from bad. It's at least interesting, there's some intrigue in what's going on. There's better, but there's much worse too.

A cheap pastiche of cuddled together horror-tropes and cheap jumpscares. This is how I imagine a freshman student-movie with a budget. At least it looks the part.

The story may feel a bit rushed, and leaves plenty to the imagination, but there are no obvious plot holes, no cheap jumpscares and what is there is "believable". A bit short of greatness, but definitely a solid entry.

38.500

But the metaphysical showdown serves little more purpose here than preaching the doctrine of Hollywoodism: Whatever happens, leave the door open for a sequel. Because while it's never a good idea for movieland scientists to raise somebody from the dead, the entertainment industry likes nothing better than to resurrect bad horror movies again and again. (pluggedin.com)

Very poor.

Fooled again by a good trailer. That's $14 I'd like back.

Such a wasted cast. What could have been a new take on "Flatliners" becomes a hokey horror that relies on jump scares.

Well this was... disappointing. The story had so much potential that just kinda went outta the window with a slow start and a mediocre attempt at creating suspense and horror. There were some jump scares but... nothing too surprising. The slow start took up so much time there didn't seem to be enough left to actually explain whatever the f*** this promised Lazarus Effect even is, like ??? What??? All in all I had so many hopes for this one and they all got crushed.

Derivative of a thousand other better films

Decent horror film focusing on the dead coming back to life and demonic possession. Nothing particularly notable about it, but not bad either.

By now we should know that Blumhouse produces cheaply and effectively. There's even an antiseptic, flashy style to their films.

I'm glad it didn't go all the way out to scare you like most cheap horrors, but at the same time this ended up being a close to useless scary movie.

I was looking forward to this exciting cast. It's like Community meets The League meets American Horror Story. The general sci-fi idea was interesting, but the details were handled poorly. The effects aimed beyond its budget. A low budget movie trying to do high budget things never works well. I feel like this would make a good Black Mirror episode with a few tweaks. However, this movie was not very good.

Just a mediocre horror about science people playing God again. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/2qtGQoc

Wasn't anything original but was fun to watch anyway.