History Film / TheLazarusEffect

''The Lazarus Effect'' is a 2015 film starring Mark Duplass, Creator/OliviaWilde, Creator/SarahBolger, Creator/EvanPeters, and Creator/DonaldGlover. A team of scientists is working on creating a better means of resuscitating dead patients to allow doctors more time to heal them. When they get shut down for overstepping the bounds of their grant, they try to do one last experiment to prove they can do it… and things get worse when project leader Zoe gets accidentally electrocuted, only for her fiancé Frank to attempt the procedure on her. Things go downhill from there.

* JerkassHasAPoint: The Dean & the Pharmaceutical Company confiscate the research in the most obnoxious way possible, but their right. Frank was conducting deeply unethical research that both far exceeded his mandate and violated the terms of the grant agreement. The Dean is complete correct that Frank has no one to blame but himself and that was the only realistic outcome once his actions were discovered. The Dean is also correct that he is a hopeless idealist trying to prove his theories about death and the afterlife, which deeply offended the Universities Donors (The University is religious institution.) His research ''was'' endangering the funding of the entire University on the off chance he might be right. As such, she was well within her rights to shut the program down.

* JerkassHasAPoint: The Dean & the Pharmaceutical Company confiscate the research in the most obnoxious way possible, but their right. Frank was conducting deeply unethical research that both far exceeded his mandate and violated the terms of the grant agreement. The Dean is complete correct that Frank has no one to blame but himself and that was the only realistic outcome once his actions were discovered. The Dean is also correct that he is a hopeless idealist trying to prove his theories about death and the afterlife, which deeply offended the Universities Doners(The University is religious institution.) His research ''was'' endangering the funding of the entire University on the off chance he might be right. As such, she was well within her rights to shut the program down.

* DiaboliqueExMachina: Most of the ending is this.

* {{Expy}}: Olivia Wilde plays a biology/medicine scientist in a story that deals with very esoteric scientific ideas and is filled with TechnoBabble. This is very similar to her BreakoutRole in [[HouseMD a TV show that ended just a year before]] the filming of this movie started.

The Lazarus Effect is a 2015 film starring Mark Duplass, Creator/OliviaWilde, Creator/SarahBolger, Creator/EvanPeters, and Creator/DonaldGlover. A team of scientists is working on creating a better means of resuscitating dead patients to allow doctors more time to heal them. When they get shut down for overstepping the bounds of their grant, they try to do one last experiment to prove they can do it… and things get worse when project leader Zoe gets accidentally electrocuted, only for her fiancé Frank to attempt the procedure on her. Things go downhill from there.

* NightmareSequence: Zoe, of a fire when she was a child. [[spoiler:That she started. ''On purpose]]''.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: Clay thinks this is what's going on with Zoe. Though he notes that the regular trope is a myth and that it's 10% of the brain that gets used ''at a time'', but her serum is causing her to use 100% of her brain ''all the time.''
* PsychicPowers: Zoe starts exhibiting a few.
** MindOverMatter
** {{Telepathy}}
** ViralTransformation: [[spoiler:Zoe can make more resurrected like herself with a direct transfusion.]]
** Possibly mild {{precognition}} judging by how she predicted what her friends would say.

* ViralTransformation: [[spoiler:After Zoe kills everyone, she then plugs herself into the injection machine and proceeds to start resurrecting everyone.]]

* CameBackWrong: It starts with the dog they first successfully resurrect, Rocky. He's listless and won't eat or drink. Then he starts going all Cujo. Zoe herself starts exhibiting behavior that leads her friends to think she's DemonicallyPossessed. [[spoiler:She very much isn't.]]

* DemonicallyPossessed: [[spoiler:Eva ''thinks'' this might be the case, but it's unclear whether it was possession, Zoe going crazy from the resurrection, or Zoe going crazy from having been in Hell. Given she intentionally started the fire that ends up being her personal Hell, she might even have been bad all along.]]

* HellHound: Rocky, sadly.

The Lazarus Effect is a 2015 film starring Mark Duplass, Creator/OliviaWilde, Creator/SarahBolger, Creator/EvanPeters, and Creator/DonaldGlover. A team of scientists is working on creating a better means of resuscitating dead patients to allow doctors more time to heal them. When they get shut down for overstepping the bounds of their grant, they try to do one last experiment to prove they can do it... and things get worse when project leader Zoe gets accidentally electrocuted, only for her fiancée Frank to attempt the procedure on her. Things go downhill from there.

The Lazarus Effect is a 2015 film starring Creator/MarkDuplass, Creator/OliviaWilde, Creator/SarahBolger, Creator/EvanPeters, and Creator/DonaldGlover. A team of scientists is working on creating a better means of resuscitating dead patients to allow doctors more time to heal them. When they get shut down for overstepping the bounds of their grant, they try to do one last experiment to prove they can do it... and things get worse when project leader Zoe gets accidentally electrocuted, only for her fiancée Frank to attempt the procedure on her. Things go downhill from there.

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Subverted. Zoe not only survives, it might have been just a dying dream.]]

* KickTheDog: Well, Rocky was already on the creepy and possibly murderous, but Zoe taking him out was definitely part of her slippery slope.

* {{Hell}}: Zoe thinks she was brought back from hell through the resurrection.

* NightmareSequence: Zoe, of a fire when she was a child. [[spoiler:That she started.]] ''[[spoiler:On purpose]]''.

The Lazarus Effect is a 2015 film starring Creator/MarkDuplass, Creator/OliviaWilde, Creator/SarahBolger, Creator/EvanPeters, and Creator/DonaldGlover. A team of scientists is working on creating a better means of resuscitating dead patients to allow doctors more time to heal them. When they get shut down for overstepping the bounds of their grant, they try to do one last experiment to prove they can do it... and things get worse when project leader Zoe gets accidentally electrocuted, only for her fiancée Mark to attempt the procedure on her. Things go downhill from there.

* DemonicallyPossessed: [[spoiler:Eva ''thinks'' this might be the case, but it's unclear whether it was possession, Zoe going crazy from the resurrection, or Zoe going crazy from having been in Hell.]]

* NightmareSequence: Zoe, of a fire when she was a child.

* DemonicallyPossessed: [[spoiler: Eva ''thinks'' this might be the case, but it's unclear whether it was possession, Zoe going crazy from the resurrection, or Zoe going crazy from having been in Hell.]]

** ViralTransformation [[spoiler:Zoe can make more resurrected like herself with a direct transfusion.]]

* ViralTransformation: [[spoiler: After Zoe kills everyone, she then plugs herself into the injection machine and proceeds to start resurrecting everyone.]]

* RecurringNightmare: Zoe, of a fire when she was a child.

[[caption-width-right:298:some caption text]]

* SequelBait: The corrupt corporation has the research, and [[spoiler:Zoe and her newly resurrected fiancée and friends are now free to wreak havoc.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: The ending shows [[spoiler: the villain's RedemptionsEqualsDeath was all a DyingDream by the FinalGirl. The villain is alive, and the FinalGirl is dead.]] This works well with the film's theme of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, as a magical explanation would make a great deal of what we saw accurate anyway, while a mundane explanation would call it into question.

* CameBackWrong
* TheEndingChangesEverything