The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Courtesy of the infamous Blumhouse Productions, The Lazarus Effect is the latest thriller to dabble in the world of the undead, doesn’t have all that much new to show or say. Directed by David Gelb, the film’s rehashed premise – see Joel Schumacher’s Flatliners – lacks energy, leaving audiences with,' well, not very much.

The Lazarus Effect tells the story of engaged medical researchers,Frank (Duplass) and Zoe (Wilde), who, along with their team – Clay (Peters), Niko (Glover) and Eva (Bolger) – have just broken new ground by creating a serum that can bring back the dead. Commence eye-rolling. After successfully bringing a dead dog back to life, the team notice that some of the side-effects of the procedure are a little worrisome; the experiment has led to an increased brain-activity in the canine and particularly aggressive behaviour. Uh-oh!

However, their project is soon shut down by a large pharmaceutical company that has recently bought the company that has been funding them all this time.

Feeling like they’re on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery, Frank and Zoe sneak back into the lab, only for Zoe to be fatally electrocuted, leaving Frank no option but to inject her with the serum – cue mayhem.

Taking place almost entirely in the confines of a small science lab, The Lazarus Effect is strangely short – it clocks in at a brief eighty-three minutes – and it doesn’t take too long before its relatively engaging start descends into a big ball of horror jolts and clichés. Hiding behind dialogue weighed down by gobbledegook, behind the pseudoscience is very little real substance or originality.

Surprisingly, unlike its premise, the acting is solid and the group of young actors manage to create a believable and somewhat likable onscreen group-chemistry. As for Olivia Wilde, she’s definitely the glue that keeps the entire thing from falling apart; creepy and villainous, she makes for one beautiful and genuinely frightening antihero. But not even that can save what is tired and half-baked film – that’s not to mention the outrageously, unsatisfying abrupt ending.