The Lazarus Effect

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imdb.com/title/tt2918436/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Anyone plan to see it?

I just did.

It was “meh” overall. As you can tell by the film’s title it uses the biblical Lazarus as a metaphor. It does dive into faith vs. science/atheism and does so in a very clumsy way. It’s just a single scene that sets up main horror of the “effect.”

sdsdsd
 
Midwest88 said:
imdb.com/title/tt2918436/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Anyone plan to see it?

I just did.

It was “meh” overall. As you can tell by the film’s title it uses the biblical Lazarus as a metaphor. It does dive into faith vs. science/atheism and does so in a very clumsy way. It’s just a single scene that sets up main horror of the “effect.”

sdsdsd
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Would like to, but I do not know when I will; Mebbe when it hits the discount screens.

ICXC NIKA.
 
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Scientists at a Berkeley, CA university were given a grant to research cataracts in dogs. Along the way of research - as one thing leads to another, and “brilliance” has a break through - that dog research turns into creating a serum that brings back the dead. As one scientist puts it: To help health care and its patients. The serum will help once dead patients recover from any brain damage and long term effects. It is a scientific and medical breakthrough. The scientists experiment with pigs and dogs. All fail. Then one day, wallah. It works, after one of the associate scientists proposes a solution to alternate the serum.

The relationships between the scientists are a cliche. The two leads are in a relationship, Zoe and Frank, engaged actually - for three years. The timing of the proposal happened shortly before the grant was issued. Frank is too wrapped up to set the date of the wedding, and Zoe is waiting in heart break. The associate scientists, Clay and Niko, are two young associates. Niko has feelings for Zoe, but she’s taken. Clay is the “laid back guy who smokes” yet has moments of brilliance (the scientist who made the serum work). Enter young college student Eva. She’s brought in to tape the experiments, to tape the attempts to bring the dead back to life. Later in the movie it is revealed, in a very harsh way, that she yearns to be “part of the group,” “one of them.” But she’s not a scientist, as Zoe reminds her.

After a few days at the lab, wallah, the serum worked on a dog who later exhibits odd characteristics - no sleep, no appetite, slow growth of aggression. Clay warns Frank about the increase brain activity, but he shrugs them off saying that it’ll decrease within the week. It doesn’t.

As the week goes on, Zoe is suffering from nightmares. Within this nightmare there is a young girl standing in a hallway in her pajamas; she is holding something but it isn’t revealed. She is standing about 30 feet away from a door with muffled noise coming from it. We then learn that the people behind the door are trapped, as light - fire - engulfs the hallway that the young girl stands in. Burnt hands suddenly reaches out underneath the door. She wakes up. The camera then cuts to Zoe, in real life, dangling a necklace – at the end of the necklace there is a crucifix. Frank - later in the movie - admits that Zoe is a Catholic.

Next day. Daytime. During down time in the lab, Zoe and Frank get into a discussion about the research they’re doing, initiated by Eva. It is heavily implied that Frank believes in science, not in God; he is an atheist. The talk carries into the brain activity when a person dies - their brain is flushed with a chemical called DMT (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine ). DMT, according to Frank, is the reason why people see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” The “light” is just an effect of the DMT - the “highest high” according to Frank. Zoe doesn’t necessarily disagree. As a scientist she acknowledges the effect, but she thinks it doesn’t entirely describe “the light at the end of the tunnel”; she thinks it’s a doorway to a greater plain - heaven. Frank clearly is irritated.
 
(continued)

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The good news that the serum works is cut short. As Zoe and Frank enter the university for a days work, Frank is pulled aside by the security guard telling that the Dean of the department wanted to see him. The Dean tells Frank that the current experiments he’s conducting is a violation of contract (suppose to solve dog cataract problem instead of bringing the dead to life) - Frank is caught off guard. How did the Dean know of his experiments since the scientists all vowed to keep it a secret? The Dean goes to say that what he’s doing will upset the student body – she tells him that the student body is 80% religious (this is said to an effect that the results of the illegal experiment would greatly offend the religious students). The Dean then reveals to Frank that the independent company that funded the grant had been bought. By whom? A pharmaceutical company.

As all this goes on, the pharmaceutical company descends on the lab – black suits seize the computers, the files - everything. A man approaches Zoe and introduces himself to her. His professional disposition quickly changes into arrogance and condescension - he is the man that bought the independent business that funds the grant - one share at a time. He tells that everything that the scientists have worked on now belongs to him. Later that day Zoe accuses Eva for leaking files since she’s the one that came onto the team recently, taping the experiments. Eva denies this accusation. The group of scientists are distraught. Frank is pissed because three years of their lives have vanished before their eyes in a single day; without any proof/patent of the experiment the pharmaceutical will claim the serum as their own. But wait. Zoe stashed about a half-gallon of the serum in her home refrigerator. “Just in case,” said Zoe. Off to the lab to do one more experiment. One more experiment to tape as proof that they are the creators of the serum.

Since the grant is now owned by another business, the scientists’ lab passes were stripped away, but not Eva’s (she isn’t a scientist so the university and black suits overlooked her). They sneak into the lab and perform the needed experiment. It goes wrong. Zoe pulls the lever that initiates the electric current, but in the process she is electrocuted to death. In previous attempts, before the grant was bought, whoever pulled the lever would take off all jewelry - anything that would attract the electricity. Zoe forgot to take off her engagement ring. In the last attempt to salvage the night, a desperate Frank puts her on the table. Instead of experimenting with dogs, it’s with a human. Clay and Niko object, as well as Eva, but Frank doesn’t care. He’d do the experiment without them. Frank and Niko give in. Eva pulls the lever. After a couple of tries, they give up. It appears Zoe is forever dead and that their fates are left to the courts as the sit silently at in the lab. Then something finally goes right. Zoe, apparently, is alive. She is dazed and confused, but “alive.”

As the night goes on weird things happen. The lights flicker on and off, Clay and Niko feel that Zoe “isn’t herself.” Zoe agrees. Frank leads Zoe to the labs activity room where he puts her engagement ring on the necklace which holds the crucifix around her neck saying “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ll put faith in this [the crucifix] for once,” or something to that effect. The moment he puts it around her neck Zoe’s breathing becomes irregular, but quickly resumes back to normal. She falls asleep.

As Zoe sleeps, Clay explains to Eva that the serum – as it stays within the brain – increases its activity. Humans use only 10% of their brain; the other 90% is unknown possibilities. Clay then adds in that there is a reason why evolution has took millions of years – humans can’t personally handle that amount of evolution in such a short amount of time (hence technology evolves at a rapid pace, but humans evolve at a snail’s pace). Humans just aren’t evolved enough to use more than that 10%.
 
(continued)

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Eva enters the room and puts a blanket on Zoe. As she does she hears whispers. She puts her face near Zoe - more whispers. Eva then stands up right and, as we’re to believe, enters Zoe’s nightmare where the doorway stood leading to the lab. As the nightmare goes on, Eva approaches the burning door. She opens it. As light shines her face a figure reaches out and grabs her wrist. She screams. Eva is found on the ground by the scientists - she wakes up and rushes into the lab. During this event Zoe – still asleep - rips off the necklace from her neck. As Frank, Niko and Clay ask her what happened one of them notices the marks on her wrist – burnt marks. Eva tells them what she saw in her vision – Frank is flustered; Niko and Clay notices this and forces him to tell them “everything.” Frank admits that what Eva just described was Zoe’s nightmare, only known to him and her.

As Clay bandages Eva up, Niko calls Frank into the lab. It appears that an anonymous server was downloading research and experiment files every single day - starting on the day the pharmaceutical company bought the grant. Zoe’s accusation was false – Eva was innocent.

Upon this discovery, Frank tells the team that they need to leave pronto - the latest update was within the last ten minutes. The black suits and cops would be on their way after learning of the suspicious activity since the lab was closed off to them. There was one thing: Zoe, as her brain activity increases, heard all of this, and then some. As the team argued about the anonymous server, they shared their feelings about the increasing oddness of Zoe. Words of “We have to fix her,” and “she isn’t right” angered her; the new Zoe doesn’t want to be fixed.

Before they leave, Frank instructs the team to find the revived dog (named Rookie), as they search Zoe awakens and corners Niko in one of the medical rooms. She seduces him but he resists. Angered, she uses her new powers to trap him in a metal cabinet, slowly crushing it with Niko in it. Blood oozes at the bottom of the cabinet. Somehow she beats the rest of the team to lab and pretends to be asleep. The team returns only to say they couldn’t find the dog (which was killed by Zoe in an earlier scene, as she develops her powers) and Clay notices that Niko is missing. Frank then asks Clay to help him with the elevator – it’s stuck. They both try to open the emergency door. It’s stuck as well. Every door leading to the outside world has somehow been bolted shut (Zoe’s powers working). As the two men try to find an open door, Eva is left with Zoe. Zoe looks at Eva, hearing her thoughts.

“I don’t belong here. I’m not one of them.”

Zoe says she’s right. A look of confusion and disbelief paints Eva’s face.

“You were never one of us. Some people are born for greatness, others to hold the camera.”

There is a sick smirk on Zoe’s mouth

Eva’s face is dressed with a mixture of hurt and terror.

After unsuccessful attempts to open the doors, Clay comes back the activity room where Eva and Zoe are. He confronts Zoe saying “things have been weird ever since you came back from the dead” – and as he yells at her she, by telekinesis, puts his electronic cigarette down his throat, choking him to death (near the beginning of the movie Zoe tells Clay not to smoke in the lab – he ignores her and continues). Frank rushes to Clay tries to save his life. It’s too late. He’s dead. Frank turns to Zoe only to see she has disappeared from the coach she was sleeping on. Eva looks desperately around. All of a sudden Zoe appears near the doorway leading into the lab. As the light flickers, she elevates the furniture in the room, throwing them at the helpless Frank and Eva.
 
(continued)

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Frank and Eva, bruised and cut, awake with furniture on them. Zoe is missing. Frank instructs Eva that he must finish what he started – he will be the one to end Zoe’s life. He and Eva carefully make their way to the medical cabinet in another room, avoiding Zoe. He fills a large syringe with some sort of liquid that will stop the receiver’s heart. Frank tells Eva that whatever happens to him Zoe cannot leave the building. If he fails, she must finish the job. Suddenly weird activity happens within the medical room – the medical room is also a morgue. The cabinets holding the dead bodies are opened without being touched. Zoe is near.

Zoe beckons them to come out of hiding. Frank slowly approaches Zoe, standing the main hallway of the lab, with the syringe behind his back. Frank calmly tells Zoe that he can fix her, that he loves her. She calls him out – he’s bluffing in her mind – she tells Frank she knows about the syringe behind his back. Busted. Zoe’s eyes are back to normal instead of dead black. They couple their heads together and Zoe says to Frank “Do you really love me?” as she places her hands upon his temples. Whatever Frank was thinking at that time Zoe got pissed off. She squeezes his head, her eyes turn black, and kills him. She doesn’t crush his skull, but instead transfers whatever “death” is inside of her unto him. Maybe she scrambled his brains. I don’t know. Whatever she did to him, his face turned bright red and foam started to spill out of his mouth.

Eva saw all of this. She closes her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. As Zoe stands back up and faces the end where Eva is, the lights leading to Eva slowly goes out. Eva rushes back to the medical room to prepare two more syringes of the liquid. In the meantime Zoe returns to the lab where she pumps more serum into her brain like its starved. Zoe is “jacked up” on the serum. Eva then enters the lab in search of Zoe where she jumps on Eva but misses; Eva runs to a door and as she closes it she finds herself back in Zoe’s nightmare. She spots the young girl (young Zoe) in the hallway. She opens her hand to reveal matches. Young Zoe is responsible for the deaths of those behind the door – she was just a kid playing with matches when the unintended horror broke out – and she has guilt on her mind. Eva puts two and two together, telling Zoe that it wasn’t her fault and that she must forgive herself. The door that Eva closes bursts open – adult Zoe enters the dream as well. As adult Zoe approaches Eva and young Zoe, her skin peals away like burnt skin. Young Zoe sees her adult self, turns to the door with the moaning and yells from behind and opens it just in time as adult Zoe approaches. Light floods the screen.

All of a sudden we are back in the lab – Zoe is standing in front of Eva with mouth agape, at a standstill. Eva has stabbed Zoe with one of the syringes; Eva then stabs Zoe with the second syringe in the neck. As Zoe collapses, so does Eva. We see Eva crying and hear sirens in the backgrounds; firefighters enter the floor and one approaches Eva. He comforts Eva asking if she is alright – as he does he notices that Zoe’s body is missing, no longer laying were she collapsed. As the camera pulls away from Eva’s face resting on the firefighter’s shoulder, there are long hair locks coming from the helmet that wasn’t there before. As Eva slowly look up at the firefighter, Zoe’s face appears underneath the helmet. She smirks at Eva, grabs her face and quickly snaps her neck.

The camera slowly shows the bodies of Niko, Clay and Eva, all lined up next to each other. On the experiment table there is Frank. Zoe appears and sticks the serum needle into Frank’s temple. After one try, Frank’s body violently reacts to the electric shock – he gasps, awakened.

End
 
Wow ,thankyou

Scary,and not so far fetched, unfortunately .

Imagine if when some people die ,those with certain talents ,instead of dying they would

give you an injection to come back to life .

Not my idea of ‘eternal life’ ,but those who ‘deny’ God, and embrace the 'material only

concept of life’, might find themselves getting what they wish for , an eternal

material ‘nightmare’. :eek:
 
So, everyone dies and evil wins? I’ll pass. I appreciate the heads up. I was thinking of seeing this. I would have just left in anger after watching it.
 
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