**Spoiler Alert**
Director: David Gelb/Starring: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Sarah Bolger, Evan Peters and Donald Glover
It's hard to square the film The Lazarus Effect; a yawner of a horror flick which strains itself (but not too much) to be scary, with director David Gelb's terrific, 2011 documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. What could the two films possibly have in common? Not much, save for Gelb's direction. While the documentary is a fascinating look at a sushi chef who pursues perfection, The Lazarus Effect is a story about a group of young scientists who resurrect a doggie and a great looking chick, with what should be horrifying results. No, they don't try to resurrect sushi but I wish they had.
Gelb's feature film debut is a bit of a clunker but it didn't start off that way.
Mark Duplass and the lovely Olivia Wilde play corporate-funded, university scientists (who are also engaged) Frank and Zoe; who have developed something known as the Lazarus Serum. When said serum is injected into the brain of a deceased recipient and stimulated with electricity, the subject is miraculously brought back from the dead.
When the film begins, Frank and Zoe, along with their student assistants, Clay (Evan Peters) and Niko (Donald Glover) and a student documentarian Eva (Sarah Bolger), have recently tested the serum on a dog. As the dead pooch rests on a table, the serum is injected into his brain while voltage is applied. At first the experiment seems a failure until the dog violently spasms into life. Though the group toasts one another for their dramatic success, the audience is left wondering how and who would fund such an insane project. Though Frank explains in Eva's documentary how the serum has practical applications--something about helping EMTs' do their jobs--the idea that a group of scientists would abandon their original project to pursue something so wacky and without corporate or academic oversight seems more than just a little preposterous. But Duplass and Wilde do their level best to give the story credibility and they do pretty well, considering.
But of course all horror films about the hubris of science and scientists playing God will inevitably become cautionary tales and this movie is no exception.
The dog soon shows abnormal behavior, like appetite loss and sudden, violent, rage-filled outbursts which unnerve the group. But other than a scene where the dog stands menacingly over Zoe while she sleeps, he doesn't do much else to terrify the crew other than wrecking the lab kitchen. I think an intervention by dog whisperer Cesar Millan might have been in order but I don't think he handles doggie un-dead.
The project suffers a major setback when the company that supplies the groups research grant is bought out by a rival. Operatives of the new company invade the lab, seizing all data relating to the project. Desperate to retain ownership of the Lazarus serum and all rights pertaining to its creation, the group breaks into the lab to recreate the experiment on film. While another dog rests on the table (how and where the scientists appropriate dead dogs is never explained), the experiment proceeds but in applying voltage, Zoe is accidentally electrocuted. While futile efforts are made to resuscitate her, a desperate Frank decides to use the serum on his fiancee, much to the horror of his assistants and Eva. When the experiment works, Zoe, like the dog, begins to show signs of not being quite right. She anticipates what people say and her fingers begin to show signs of something resembling necrosis. She also stares creepily at one of the assistants.
And sure enough, some sort of power failure keeps the group imprisoned in the lab (a lab wouldn't have fail-safe escapes in case of fire or other disasters?), which means Zoe, who has now become the chick version of the undead, begins attacking the group.
Earlier in the film, we learned Zoe is tormented by nightmares about a traumatic childhood incident involving her inability to free neighbors from their burning apartment. After her resurrection, the nightmares attain verisimilitude as the filmmaker Eva finds herself projected into in the burning hallway of Zoe's childhood memory. We also learn that Zoe's soul may not have made the transition to the afterlife, which is supposed to explain her wraith-like condition. But how can the dog's predicament, which is identical to Zoe's, be explained? Does he suffer from some sort of doggie guilt from an incident in his past? A time he mauled a mailman's leg perhaps?
Ultimately, as the audience may have guessed from the trailer, Zoe goes on a rampage that doesn't spare anyone (save the dog). A frail attempt at a plot twist comes at the end but by then, I was too bored and un-scared to care much about the outcome.
Of course science and scientists are scapegoated (yet again) in a movie while religious notions about the afterlife and tunnels of bright light are given credence. In Hollywood movies, scientists are never to be trusted while anyone espousing any religious, quasi-rational view about the here-after is to be perceived as level-headed. That may never change. But, it shouldn't take the intellect of research scientists to know resurrecting one from death is a knuckle-headed idea. It's disturbing to consider that someday someone may actually fund such a project.
I think Duplass and Wilde are talented actors who deserve a better movie. In time, they will no doubt find more inspired scripts and director David Gelb will surely find better material to showcase his talents.
I'm sorry to say The Lazarus Effect has nary a scare in its short running time.
But hold on, what happened to the dog? Was that ever explained?
Wait a minute, I see him...there he is...he's in my yard! No...go away...nice doggie...please...I'm sorry I said that stuff about the mailman...No, not my throat...please, let me live to see the sequel...AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!
