The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Powerful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The acting in this movie is really good.

Even the most fanatical of religious zealots would be hard pressed to match the anti technology fear that seems to dominate the quivering mass that constitute Hollywood screenwriters these days. It seems that experimentation and innovation are the purview of arrogant scientists, who will inevitably be punished for the hubris of wanting something better for their species. The drivel that this movie serves up clearly tells us; There are things Man was not meant to know" or "Man should not attempt to cheat death"

This re-animator vibe filled movie had so much going for it. I scratched the surface of a very interesting story. This could really have been much much more. The acting was above what I was expecting. Of course you get a few scare jumps, but that is not what this movie is trying to be. Yet it falls short of become something greater. The cold emptiness of the lab could be felt, it added to the atmosphere very well. This movie obviously got his inspiration from The Re-Animator, Pet Cemetery and even a little Flatliners if would dare to say. As enjoyable as it was, you can't help to fell like this movie was rushed out of it's intentions. That will leave you wishing it had more to offer in the end. Don't get me wrong, this movie is not dull or boring, but it strive's to accomplished something but never does. Well made and a great production value without a doubt. The plot is kinda easy to foresee yet keeps you on your toes until the end. Overall this movie is entertaining, but... Like I said , could have done much more.

I couldn't stand looking at the way the animals were treated. It was awful. Do the movie without having to put a dog in restraints, then in a cage, then make it act like it's psychotic. Really not necessary. Stick to humans. Animals can't say "no." I was very disappointed in this movie. I supposed the plot was fine, I just didn't like the whole tenor of it. Everything about the movie seemed very haphazard and written without any depth. And, like i said, they just should have excluded the dog from the script. He wasn't needed and it was upsetting to see him being shot up and restrained, even if animal welfare was on the set, which I hope it was. Probably they didn't really shoot him up, it was just so disturbing, the absolute disrespect for life.

Another film which perhaps shoots itself in the foot a little by determinedly remaining enigmatic. Were we to learn a little bit more precisely what effect the (previously-only-animal-tested) scientific procedure carried out on lead-role Zoe (Olivia Wilde) REALLY had, it would not do any harm to the enjoyment of this creepy film, and might in fact make it still better. But enigmatic it remains, though scary enough. And all the more so given that pretty much everything happens in a single lab, populated by plausible-enough characters underplayed by their rather little-known actors to the point where we may at times feel this is a not a movie at all. For me that's a success, and by the way a nice metaphor for the claustrophobia and lack of real-world contact that can characterise the obsessive pursuit of scientific enquiry - this after all being a major theme of the film, before it leaves science fiction behind in favour of horror, in the last third of what is actually a very short whole. So short in fact that it remains taut and holds the attention throughout. There are a couple of why questions here - maybe why make the film in the first place? Though perhaps the answer to that is alluded to in what I wrote above. Also why certain characters act as they do at different points of the film. On the other hand, it could - reasonably - be argued that this adds to an authentic sense of nervous chaos that must presumably always accompany experiments that go wrong, or go too far, or both. As a scientifically-trained person myself, I have observed at first hand the tunnel vision that can rather easily come over research workers, so it certainly strikes me that this is a worthwhile issue raised. There is definitely many a horror film out there vastly less real-looking than this one, just as there are many films about science-gone-wrong that are less scary. But here we seem to have hit an interesting and rather novel balance. It works for me, if at a 7 and certainly not a 10...