Reloading - The Lazarus Effect

Welcome back to Reloading. It has certainly been a while what with my YouTube shenanigans and such. But now I'm finding time to get us caught up on our reviews, our blogs, our best of lists. And this week our review will be over the latest horror-esk movie to hit the big screen, The Lazarus Effect. This also clears off one of the movies from my “Most Anticipated of 2015” list. Did it live up to the hype at all? Again, sorry it took me over a bloody month to get to it. 

The Lazybus Effect is a movie starring various actors from shows I’ve already seen and loved and recognize these characters for. You have 13 from House M.D. alongside Troy from Community and the Franken-jock from American Horror Story: Coven. There are a couple other actors, but that’s not really all that important. Because our story follows the always attractive and excellent Olivia Wilde and her scientific quest for knowledge.

Knowledge for what, exactly? The ability to extend the time doctors have with coma patients and those undergoing surgery. She develops a chemical (the lazarus chemical) which was intended for the patient to be revived should they die under the knife or something like that, giving medical professionals more time or a second chance to complete procedures. But the chemical compound works better than expected, fully bringing subjects back from the dead. So if you were remembering the word “Lazarus” from Batman and remembered what it did for Ra’s Al Ghul, yeah… the premise of this movie wasn’t surprising you any.

The first subject we see successful test on is a canine that begins to act strange shortly after its resurrection. But before the matter can be explored any further, a corporation owned by Satan (from CW’s Reaper) steps in to remove all the equipment and research because they bought it from the school (so to speak). But Olivia Wilde and her team were crafty enough to keep just enough of the compound around to perform one more experiment to prove this chemical is indeed theirs and no one else should have it.

This is where tits go up and shit goes down. An accident occurs, killing Olivia Wilde. Making an irrational decision based on love, her fiancée (also a scientist) decides to use the chemical on her instead of the second dog they had ready to go. They bring her back to life and she seems off-kilter as well and the group can’t figure out why. But before too long, they realize they have to leave the underground lab they’re illegally working in before the corporation discovers what’s really going on.

But here’s the catch. Remember that movie from 2014, Lucy, in which they played off the myth that humans only use 10% of their brain power? Well, Laryngitis Effect plays that same card. But instead of having your protagonist turn into some all-powerful knowledge seeking deity that wants to make the world better… Olivia Wilde turns into an all-powerful demonic force that decides killing everyone and making them into resurrected zombie-slaves is more fun. A logic I honestly can’t fault, but it becomes sort of predictable when she starts reading minds and realizes how scared of her everyone is.

Slowly, one-by-one, she kills everyone and the film leaves us with a cliffhanger that is somewhat shameful, but there wasn’t much else they could do other than extend the movie another hour or two. But the deaths aren’t all straight forward, as some utilize hallucinations or ironic-twists to make a point. But with there being only four characters to kill and only two of them are really creative in any way, it makes the spectacle of it all kind of disappointing. The lack of additional illusions and psionic shenanigans make for a disappointingly underused idea. Scarecrow would be ashamed.

Beyond that, the plot is rather predictable to a point where it isn’t surprising when a character dies or when something that happens turns out to be Olivia Wilde going crazy again. This film is also very happy to pull the bullshit jumpscare card out and just throw it around like it isn’t annoying in any way. Guys, you have a character who can make our characters see their greatest fears as well as hers, so why can’t you be a bit more subtle and go with that instead of taking the Five Nights at Freddy’s approach?

Acting is fine without any real complaints on that end. Likewise, I’d say that the scenery is well put together and makes for an effectively creepy under-ground science lab. But since I’ve never seen a science lab look like a fun place to live, I guess their job was rather easy on that end. Also, why is it when the power is functional and you’re looking around for something that no one turns on a damn light? Do they think it’s more effective to leave all the lights off when trying to find something in a dimly lit laboratory that houses a psychotic psionic? Maybe it’s because they didn’t want to be seen by cameras so easily, but then their decision to be there illegally was kind of their first mistake then, wasn’t it?

Is the Locomotive Effect a good movie? Not especially. It’s predictable, filled with silly jump scares, and has an illogical approach to some concepts. Is it a bad movie? I’ve seen worse and while this has issues, it certainly isn’t something I took offense with. It’s a popcorn movie meant to fill time before something legitimately terrifying comes out to legitimately scare us. It’s got some fun actors who know what they’re doing and its basic premise is easy to understand because it’s based on science myth that people seem to get all pissed off about despite the fact we all know it’s science myth.

That’s all for this week’s episode of Reloading. Depending on how views and response go, we may do another video-review in the future, but do expect us back on the blog at our normal time soon. Thanks for watching and please be sure to like, share, comment, and subscribe. We’ll be back next week with more Reloading. Until then, this is AJ signing off.