The inclusion of Jason Blum’s name anywhere in a movie’s marketing materials sort of hints that it’s going to be an unusual twist on horror tropes of yesteryear. The scare fiend and his Blumhouse Productions outfit have kickstarted a resurgence into a more chilling brand of horror, and that trend looks to continue with The Lazarus Effect.
Starring Olivia Wilde, Sarah Bolger, Mark Duplass, Evan Peters and Donald Glover, the film follows a group of eager young scientists who do the impossible. They bring the dead back to life. Their first trial run on a dead animal prompts the keen thinkers to share their revelations with the world, but when the dean of their university stumbles upon their doings, they take matters into their own hands.
Needless to say, they extend the parameters of their initial experiment after Wilde’s character Zoe is accidentally killed. Judging by their immediate decision – let’s revive her! – it’s safe to assume that none of these incredibly intelligent researchers have seen either Flatliners or Pet Sematary. Don’t they know that resurrecting the dead will likely result in even more gory deaths? And possibly a super pissed off cat?
In interviews, Blum has cited the former as a major influence on the movie, but alas, it’s not to its characters. We’d be left with a pretty dull movie if people shirked danger because they were forewarned. Nevertheless, the trailer decides to take a different approach by showing the after effect of their experiment – a black-eyed Olivia Wilde acting all feral – before cutting back 24 hours earlier to a seemingly chipper, normal Wilde. An overused technique in movies on the whole, it makes for a slightly more intriguing trailer.
You can check it out for yourself above (via Yahoo! Movies) and let us know what you make of it in the comments below!
The Lazarus Effect opens on February 27.
