First of all “The Lazarus Effect” is rated PG-13. It’s a science fiction/horror movie that I would not feel comfortable having my 13-year old sister watch; she’d be scared out of her wits.

Doctors Zoe (Olivia Wilde) and Frank (Mark Duplass) are the lead scientists on the Lazarus Project. Aiding them are medical students, Clay (Evan Peters) and Niko (Donald Glover) and the videographer Eva (Sarah Bolger). The purpose of the Lazarus Project is to find a way to prolong the inevitable (death), so doctors and healthcare professionals have more time to save lives.

The movie begins like a documentary, outlining the process taken to test the serum. Then it launches into the background of one of the main characters, Zoe, and traumatic memories from her childhood which affect her adult life. The movie centers on the Frankenstein-esque idea of bringing the dead back to life. Lazarus Effect is a by-the-book horror flick; scientists, with good intentions, have an experiment go wrong and someone gets hurt. When the Lazarus serum worked its way into the subjects’ bloodstream, the subject shows signs of normalcy, and then turns violent and aggressive. It doesn’t offer anything all that new and turns into sort of a nightmare vision of Luc Besson’s, “Lucy” (2014). In Lazarus, Zoe uses 100% of her brain at once, same as in the other film “Lucy”. Lucy uses her newfound abilities for good and gaining information, while in Lazarus Effect, all Zoe does is kill, kill, kill.

The Lazarus Effect was completely made up of surprises and dark rooms. Many times during the movie, my friend would poke me at the surprises to make me flinch and suppress a scream. It wasn’t a very good horror flick by any means.

Now I’m not a big horror movie fan, so I was reluctant to see this movie, but somehow, I was roped in. I thought I was in for a horror movie, not a sad attempt of a suspense flick. All in all the actors were not too bad; it was just a repeat of the same things we’ve seen before. The plot line was overall lazy and filled with holes. I would give it 1.5 out of 4 stars.