The
Lazarus Effect
(2015/Fox Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: C+ Film: B
The
Lazarus Effect is
a secret little gem that didn't really get a lot of buzz and didn't
make boatloads of cash. Sure, it's basically Hollow
Man
meets Carrie
meets Re-animator
meets Flatliners
but it takes alternative avenues in style and could have been a hell
of a lot worse. The story centers around a small team of Scientists
who have been devoting years worth of time into a top secret project
that can reanimate the dead and bring them back to life by intaking a
super serum. The scientific team consists of Olivia Wilde as the
lead, Mark Duplass, Sarah Bolger, Donald Glover and the rising star
Evan Peters (American
Horror Story).
They
try the serum on dead pigs and it doesn't quite work so then they try
it on a dog and it miraculously does. The behavior in the animal,
however, is quite peculiar when the dog starts act violent out of
nowhere and creepily watches Olivia Wilde sleep at night. When
another trial of the experiment goes awry, Wilde dies and is
reanimated by Duplass and that's when things really start to hit the
fan.
Haunted
by a violent act from her childhood involving a fire, Wilde plays the
character as both a tortured soul and as a carefree young woman. One
moment compassionate and the next a little bat shit crazy. Some of
the conventions they employ in the film are done purely for the jump
scares and the lighting gimmicks are a bit of a stretch, but overall
the production value and cinematography isn't terrible at all.
Directed
by David Gelb, he pulls off some pretty interesting special effects
and an overall sophisticated feel to the film that could have
otherwise been executed in a sophomoric way. For instance, since one
character in the film is a documentarian filmmaker who is filming the
experiment and ultimately gets wrapped up in it, he could have cut to
her camera more or gone some sort of found footage type route and
didn't, which I respect. The last act is when the body count starts
to rise and things get pretty interesting, I won't spoil anything but
I definitely would be interested in seeing a sequel that they elude
to with the ending... though it probably won't happen.
The
presentation on the disc is top notch with a crisp 1080p high
definition transfer and a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and a
crystal clear, lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 track.
Extras
on the disc include a Making
of Documentary
and Deleted
Scenes.
All
in all, I really enjoyed The
Lazarus Effect,
even though it doesn't feel completely original.
-
James Harland Lockhart V
www.facebook.com/jhl5films
