The Lazarus Effect is a horror film that deals with a serum that can bring animals and people to life, but something is a little off when they do return and weird stuff starts to happen, well, weird stuff starts to happen around 45 minutes into this 1 hour and 20 minute movie. I thought that after seeing the runtime this movie was going to get into the horror elements quickly and sustain that right until the end as the trailer looked promising. Although the majority of the film is spent in a lab running tests on animals and boring and lengthy discussions about making the serum work and crap that we really don't care about. One of the biggest problems is that this movie tried to do too much above being a horror movie and as a result had no time for any scary moments. The movie was unoriginal with predictable scares that really failed to creep me out at all. Just when you think that the horror elements are coming into the film in the last act, they never really do, a couple of jump-scare moments that are predictable make up the only horror elements of the film and the last 30 minutes feel just not intense at all. The whole film lacks interest, you don't care for the first 45 minutes and then when something finally happens it is all things you have seen before and you still don't care.
Now i will say the highlight of the film is the cast, with Olivia Wilde, Danny Glover, Even Peters, Sarah Bolger and Mark Duplass they all put in some good (not great) performances that make the film still bearable to watch. Just, the film had an interesting synopsis and good actors but thats it, the crappy writing and crappy directing make this film just overall very dull and boring. They even have some minor subplot that they carry out right through the film for some "big" reveal that made absolutely no difference to anything and didn't change the way you perceive the character because you don't care. And the ending, well, also predictable, dumb, and made the whole movie suck even more. In the end this "horror" movie had potential but was wasted in every way imaginable, this is why the horror genre is hated so much; because of crap like this. - 3.2
Now i will say the highlight of the film is the cast, with Olivia Wilde, Danny Glover, Even Peters, Sarah Bolger and Mark Duplass they all put in some good (not great) performances that make the film still bearable to watch. Just, the film had an interesting synopsis and good actors but thats it, the crappy writing and crappy directing make this film just overall very dull and boring. They even have some minor subplot that they carry out right through the film for some "big" reveal that made absolutely no difference to anything and didn't change the way you perceive the character because you don't care. And the ending, well, also predictable, dumb, and made the whole movie suck even more. In the end this "horror" movie had potential but was wasted in every way imaginable, this is why the horror genre is hated so much; because of crap like this. - 3.2