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The Lazarus Effect

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The Lazarus Effect has a talented cast and the glimmer of an interesting idea, but wastes it all on insipid characters and dull, recycled plot points.

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Mark Duplass

Olivia Wilde

Donald Glover

Evan Peters

Sarah Bolger

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Medical researcher Frank, his fiancee Zoe and their team have achieved the impossible: they have found a way to revive the dead. After a successful, but unsanctioned, experiment on a lifeless animal, they are ready to make their work public. However, when their dean learns what they've done, he shuts them down. Zoe is killed during an attempt to recreate the experiment, leading Frank to test the process on her. Zoe is revived -- but something evil is within her.

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The Lazarus Effect is 12874 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 8918 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Hostile but less popular than Jaco Pastorius - Live and Outrageous.

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The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Ending Explained: What Happens To Zoe McConnell? 

Bringing the dead back to life and regretting your decision shortly after is a concept often portrayed in horror films. Blumhouse’s take on this idea is their 2015 horror sci-fi film called “The Lazarus Effect.” A group of scientists conduct an illegal lab experiment and try to revive animals and later humans by injecting them with a serum they created called “The Lazarus Serum.” However, the back from the dead soon establishes that they are no longer meant for the human world. Even though it failed to satisfy the audience with a few plot holes in its storyline, the movie is applauded for Olivia Wilde’s convincing acting and a series of jumpscares thanks to its excellent cinematography. Alongside Olivia Wilde, the film stars Mark Duplass, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, and Sarah Bolger as Wilde’s colleagues who join her in the absurd lab experiment.

“The Lazarus Effect” is often compared to the 90s epic horror flick “Flatliners”. Based on resurrection and themes of scientific experiments turning into something sinister, it delves deep into the traditional blend of the two ever-friendly genres of horror and science fiction. Keeping up with its track of producing horror films, Blumhouse added another interesting concept to its wide range of horror film productions. Known for getting new and fresh talent onboard, Jason Blum trusted director David Gelb with this project. Despite having a background in making documentaries, Gelb nailed his first narrative film. The careful light and angle adjustments brought out the horror elements with admirable perfection in terms of visuals and cinematography.

Another notable achievement of the movie is its box office success. Being a low-budget horror movie comes with great challenges of its own, especially with a newbie director who is working and learning simultaneously. However, the film proved how horror caters to an audience that is loyal to the genre and grossed $38 million at the box office. Despite not being critically acclaimed, the movie carried profound themes and horrific details, like Olivia Wilde’s dark round eyes, which are nightmarishly creepy.

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:

The movie begins with a pig being studied and injected with chemicals under operation lights. The group of scientists includes Dr. Frank Walton (Mark Duplass), his fianceé Dr. Zoe McConnell (Olivia Wilde), their assistants Niko (Donald Glover) and Clay (Evan Peters), and a friend who is documenting their experiment named Eva (Sarah Bolger). After an unsuccessful attempt, the team gathers and comes up with an alteration in the formula that may work and give them the desired results. It might help them create a serum that will bring the dead back to the living world and will be helpful to science.

The Lazarus Serum

Clay, who often smokes in the laboratory and is rebuked by Zoe, suggests certain changes in the formula, which his colleagues appreciate. They all try this new formula on a dog and try to bring it back to life. The experiment turns out to be successful, and the dog wakes up. They find his cataracts completely dissolved in his eyes, which they find bizarre. They later observe that the dog is showing usual behavior as well.

Then, Rocky (the dog) shows signs of extreme aggression, loses his appetite, and then attacks Clay after escaping from his cage. Clay reports it to his friends and says something is wrong with the animal. After careful inspection, they find the serum concentrated in Rocky’s brain, forming new synapses. This puts them in a state of worry as they conclude that the serum they have created so far is not as effective and needs further testing and improvement.

A Forbidden Experiment

While this group of scientists is working on the serum, their university dean finds out that they are not true to their word and are using the serum to resurrect dead people instead of working on the coma patients’ brains. She calls Frank and tells him it is not okay for him to lie and cancel their funding. Later on, they are raided by officers who work for the pharmaceutical company that bought the company funding their experiment.

The officers enter their laboratory and confiscate everything. When they leave, Frank and his colleagues mourn the loss of their work and doubt Eva for having leaked their secret experiment. Worrying about the future of their created serum, they discuss how they have lost all kinds of rights and will be completely stripped of any discovery that will be made through their created serum. They eventually decided to replicate the experiment to have some proof of their property.

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Ending Explained

They sneak into the building through Ava’s card, who volunteers to help them with the new experiment. As they attempt to execute, Zoe forgets to take off her engagement ring, gets electrocuted, and dies instantly. Frank mourns the loss of his love and decides to conduct the same experiment on Zoe. All of his colleagues discourage his idea, but caught in the emotions they choose to back him up and prepare for another experiment. They inject the Lazarus serum into Zoe’s body and revive her.

Zoe wakes up scared and confused, but Frank calms her down. Zoe tells them when she died, she relived the core memory of her childhood that she gets nightmares about in which Zoe is standing in a building that is on fire. Furthermore, Zoe explains that it was hell where you get to live your worst memory over and over again. Frank thinks Zoe had a near-death experience and does not believe her. She then begins to manifest psychic abilities as Zoe starts completing Frank’s unfinished sentences, which means she can read minds. Zoe also moves a pen by staring at it. Frank discovers that Zoe’s brain has rapidly evolved due to the experiment, and she now possesses telekinesis and telepathy.

The Lurking Evil

After discovering her supernatural abilities, Zoe finds her skin color changing and also sees an evil reflection of herself in the mirror. Her body goes through changes pretty fast, and Zoe begins losing her mind. As she rests on the couch, Ava reaches close to her and touches her elbow, which transports her into a dark corridor. Ava finds herself trapped in Zoe’s nightmare and spots a little girl standing. Ava asks her who she is, and she runs away. After waking up, she runs away and explains what happened to Frank. Upon describing the dream, he is shocked to hear that it is the same nightmare that Zoe often has.

Zoe tries to seduce Nick, but he refuses to comply. Zoe gets mad and uses her telekinetic abilities to throw him into a locker, crushing it just by looking at it. Blood starts dripping out of its cracks, and Nick dies inside. Zoe also tells Eva that she does not belong in this place and is not meant for great things, but as soon as Frank enters, she switches her face and acts innocent.

As Clay starts questioning her about Nick, Zoe cuts off the electricity in the entire lab and stares at him. She pushes the e-cigarette he is holding into his throat through telekinesis. When Eva and Frank try to get it out of her body, they find it gone, and Clay dies. Zoe’s eyes turn black, and she looks like she is pure evil. Eva and Frank figure out that Zoe is possessed, and they will have to kill her.

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Ending Explained:

What happened to zoe mcconnell.

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Ending Explained

Eva and Frank decide to kill Zoe and inject her with poison. Frank tells Eva to hold a syringe and not let her escape if he doesn’t come back. Frank finds Zoe in the corridor and tells her how he is trying to save her. She starts crying and seems convinced, but as soon as she touches Frank, she reads his mind and figures out he’s lying. She kills him on the spot.

Eva, with another syringe, is trying to locate Zoe when she catches herself in the middle of Zoe’s nightmare. She spots a little girl and runs to her. Eva asks her what’s in her fist and finds a matchbox, discovering that Zoe started the fire and locked her neighbors. It was her guilt that became her hell. The adult Zoe, who has injected herself with more Lazarus serum, moves towards her, but the girl opens the door, and a light takes over the scene. Zoe apologizes and dies when some firefighters enter the building and comfort Eva. She suddenly sees his face, and it is Zoe who snaps her neck and kills her. She then injects the serum into Frank’s dead body, and he revives.

Why Did Zoe Resurrect Frank?

Zoe is seen lining up dead bodies and reviving Frank and possibly all the other bodies present there. Even though there wasn’t any explanation given about this in the movie, it is clear that Zoe wanted to create an army of evil beings like hers. The obscure ending of the film seems intentional for fans to anticipate a sequel where they get to see an army of re-animated beings with wicked capabilities. Another reason for her reviving Frank could be her need to have the Lazarus Serum. It could be witnessed how she keeps injecting it into her body to attain strength and gain more and more of it. Due to the limited amount of serum created for the testing, she will eventually run out of it and would need Frank to create it for her, all while becoming her literal ‘partner in crime.’

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Themes Analysed:

Desperation.

This film shows the ultimate drive to do the unthinkable out of desperation. When the project is canceled, the scientists know what they are risking, yet in their desperation to prove themselves, they end up taking an illegal route to perform the forbidden experiment. Similarly, when Zoe dies, Frank, out of love, feels helpless and, out of desperation, decides to perform a flawed experiment, knowing it may not be for the best.

Humans Playing God

The theme of ‘trying to play God’ profoundly exists in the movie. When humans try to take unnatural means to fulfill their selfish desires, it always ends badly. Frank and Zoe take the grant to help coma patients but end up trying to bring the dead back to life. Even though they intend to do well, they go too far. Frank throws away his moral codes when he decides to do a defective experiment on his wife. Even though his colleagues warn him, he chooses to play God and revive Zoe.

Shadows Of the Past

The movie highlights how a painful past scars a person. The traumatic events of Zoe’s childhood never leave her, and she always feels trapped. It becomes her hell, and before turning downright evil, she relives the guilt of the fire she started. Her dark memories are part of the reason she is driven mad by the end of the movie.

Read More: 30 Underrated Sci-Fi Movies From Across The Globe

The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Links: IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes , Wikipedia , Letterboxd Cast of The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Genre: Horror/Mystery & Thriller | Runtime: 1h 23m

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Review: In ‘The Lazarus Effect,’ Young Scientists Play God

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lazarus experiment movie

By Ben Kenigsberg

  • Feb. 26, 2015

The researchers in “ The Lazarus Effect ” devise a serum that resurrects the dead by stimulating brain activity. The film itself seems best watched with as few neurons firing as possible.

Perhaps having not read Mary Shelley, the scientists are near a breakthrough. Frank (Mark Duplass) suggests that their findings will prolong life-saving procedures and “give health care professionals more time to do their jobs.” (That concept, at least, is not entirely fiction .)

In their chic and expensive-looking university lab, they perform medical operations with sleekly minimalist illumination. They speak in fractured jargon from various disciplines and play Mozart to relax. In one of many ostensibly scary moments that get a laugh, the dog they have revivified climbs on a bed and watches Zoe (Olivia Wilde) as she sleeps.

Playing God after hours, the team members break into the lab, newly taken over by a pharmaceutical giant, with the help of their documentarian (Sarah Bolger). When Zoe is electrocuted, Frank, her fiancé, brings her back — a bad idea that soon reinforces the lessons of such movies as “Flatliners” (in which dying means facing a past trauma or sin) and “Lucy” (the neural boost gives Zoe psychic powers, which she uses to turn the power on and off).

Despite eclectic casting and occasional experiments with objective camera, the director, David Gelb (“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”), can’t breathe similar life into this risible mix of pseudoscientific hokum and supernatural freakouts.

“The Lazarus Effect” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Don’t play God, kids.

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lazarus experiment movie

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The Critical Movie Critics

Movie Review: The Lazarus Effect (2015)

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  • --> March 1, 2015

At St. Paternus University in Berkeley, CA, a small group of researchers has spent the last three years experimenting with the Lazarus serum, a discovery they hope will help the medical community escape the pressures of time, saving more patients while avoiding negative side effects and loss of cognitive function. Frank (Mark Duplass, “ Tammy ”) and his fiancée, Zoe (Olivia Wilde, “ Drinking Buddies ”), are passionate about their work, and have put off their own wedding in order to fulfill their scientific dreams. However, the original focus of their work has shifted a little; they’ve recently discovered that their serum, combined with a neurological jump-start brought on by jolts of electricity, can bring the deceased back to life (paging Dr. Frankenstein . . . Dr. Frankenstein to the lab, please). But unlike Mary Shelley’s good doctor, or his 1931 Universal Pictures counterpart, this group hasn’t stitched together human body parts; they’re experimenting on dead animals — first a pig, then a dog. The dog, named Rocky — the ultimate underdog who defied the odds, is energetic at first, but shortly begins to exhibit signs of confusion and aggression: He doesn’t want to eat, he lies very still on the floor, and he channels Katie Featherston from “ Paranormal Activity ,” eerily staring at Zoe while she sleeps.

Just as the group starts making some headway in their research, their grant funding is revoked, and they scramble to reproduce their findings before the big, bad corporation can capitalize on their ideas. During their attempt to make good on that plan, tragedy strikes — Zoe is electrocuted, and they are unable to resuscitate her. Despite the fact that the others appear to have seen or read Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary,” Frank, desperate to save Zoe, convinces the reluctant group to bring her back using the Lazarus serum. Zoe exhibits the same confusion as Rocky, but then discovers she’s gained some new psychic and telekinetic abilities. Realizing Frank and the others fear her, and could potentially turn her into a human lab rat, she lashes out against them, trapping them in the basement laboratory.

The Lazarus Effect is one of those horror movies that loads up on talent, but then lazes back onto old, overused tricks and ideas. Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde, joined by Evan Peters (“ X-Men: Days of Future Past ”) and Donald Glover (“ Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ”), are so much better actors than their performances allow here. Wilde, at least, gets the opportunity to play a little, and her facial expressions are fascinating and clever, turning on a dime from one conversation to another with expert subtlety. Conversely, Peters is unfortunately wasted as a dopey slacker-type, and Glover is reduced to a simple lab assistant who does nothing to further the plot. Rounding out the cast is Sarah Bolger (“ The Spiderwick Chronicles ”), who plays the lackluster Eva, brought on to document the experiment as it unfolds. But fear not, good viewers; this is not a found-footage film. There are a handful of point-of-view shots from both Eva’s camera and from security cameras, but they’re not overused.

On the other hand, the overuse comes in the form of jump scares brought on by darkness and flickering fluorescent lights. Perhaps effective to the film’s target PG-13 audience, these scares are basic Horror 101 moments that don’t resonate with a more experienced horror viewer. While the movie does earn some credit for sidestepping the typical, cheap happy ending, there are no new ideas to set it apart from the plethora of cookie-cutter, disappointing horror films that have come out in recent years. The ol’ religion versus science debate and Zoe’s recurring guilty nightmares are just two of the rehashed themes that we’ve grown tired of seeing again and again and again.

Producer Jason Blum, who’s repeatedly proven that he knows good horror when he sees it, with movies like “Paranormal Activity,” “ Sinister ,” and “ Insidious ” (among others), has missed a step with The Lazarus Effect ; this is one long-dead movie idea that should never have been revived.

Tagged: college , experiment , student , undead

The Critical Movie Critics

School teacher by day. Horror aficionado by night.

Movie Review: Little Fish (2020) Movie Review: The Unholy (2021) Movie Review: The Mark of the Bell Witch (2020) Movie Review: Chop Chop (2020) Movie Review: Coven of Evil (2020) Movie Review: Mara (2018) Movie Review: The First Purge (2018)

'Movie Review: The Lazarus Effect (2015)' have 3 comments

The Critical Movie Critics

March 1, 2015 @ 1:33 pm Slovenski

Give me “Re-Animator” any day of the week over this.

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The Critical Movie Critics

March 1, 2015 @ 2:24 pm Andrew Tyler Adams

Gimme Flatliners.

The Critical Movie Critics

March 1, 2015 @ 1:52 pm THISISNOTMYUSERNAME

I hated everything about it. It’s predictable to a fault and the characters and jump scares suck. It’s movie-making of the lowest standard.

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'Lazarus' rises above the horror pack

With its homages to Frankenstein, The Exorcist and The Shining, director David Gelb's The Lazarus Effect is at least smarter and tenser than last year's crop of tame horror films.

It also qualifies as one of the more intriguing career segues: Gelb's last film was 2011's cult-favorite foodie documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi .

It begins as a medical thriller (**½ out of four; rated PG-13; opens Friday) as a team of researchers believe they've discovered a serum that could resurrect recently dead or comatose patients.

Heading up the project is Frank — yes he's Dr. Frank, but thankfully his last name isn't revealed to be Stein — played by Mark Duplass. His fiancée, Zoe (Olivia Wilde), is his partner in science. The rest of the team includes college researchers Niko (Donald Glover), Clay (Evan Peters) and videographer Ava (Sarah Bolger).

An early scene shows them trying unsuccessfully to bring a pig back to life. But when they inject the "Lazarus serum'' into a dead dog it's revived. But something's off. He had terrible cataracts and when he comes back to life they're gone. He also refuses food and stares a lot. The serum is supposed to dissipate after a few hours, but remains in his system.

Still, the group overlooks this hiccup in their elation that they've resurrected a creature.

But before they're able to reveal their breakthrough to the scientific community, the university they work for, which has religious ties, learns of their experiments and shuts them down. They're accused of playing God.

Then, the company that funded their experiment is bought by a huge pharmaceutical company. Officials storm into their lab and confiscate everything, under some complicated terms in a contract Frank signed. The idea of Big Pharma watching is one of the movie's weaker links, left murky, perhaps intentionally, for sequel purposes.

After the team's equipment is confiscated, Frank persuades them to go rogue and re-create the experiment with vials of serum he and Zoe have kept hidden.

But, in the meantime, the dog they've revived has developed some worrying traits, including unexpected aggression.

One would think they might think twice about replicating their experiment. But with the threat of the shutdown looming, they act impulsively, with Frank attempting to resurrect a human.

What follows is standard-issue horror fare, with some thought-provoking and eerie moments.

Lazarus delves into religious terrain with discussion of the afterlife and souls and what is experienced as life ends. It also explores the insidious power of guilt over an unintended act with deadly consequences.

Yet horror movie tropes abound. There's a scary little girl who appears repeatedly and says nothing, a long hallway leading to a flame-filled room and a decent person who becomes a freaky evildoer. The plot also sets up a very obvious possibility for a sequel.

The Lazarus Effect is not brain surgery — oh wait, it kinda is — but it's absorbing, well-crafted and appropriately tense, with a smart cast that raises it a notch above average.

The Lazarus Effect

lazarus experiment movie

Just before the commencement of the screening of the new horror film “The Lazarus Effect” that I was attending, a woman entered the theater with two small children—maybe 6 and 4 years of age tops. Under normal circumstances, such a spot-on parenting choice would lead to the kids screaming and yelling in response to all the nasty imagery and blaring sound effects emanating from the screen. However, I don’t recall hearing a single peep from either of them at any point during the screening despite all the on-screen atrocities. From this, I can conclude one of two things—either kids today are even more jaded than previously suspected or, more likely, “The Lazarus Effect” is such a limp excuse for a horror movie that it cannot even get a rise out of a couple of kids out past their bedtime on a school night.

The film is yet another riff on the old chestnut of arrogant scientists who discover the secret to bringing the dead back to life and discover to their amazement that it is not all that it is cracked up to be. Our tamperers in God’s domain this time around are Frank ( Mark Duplass ) and Zoe ( Olivia Wilde ), a couple of researchers at a California university who are developing a serum that could help revive the dead. With their team—computer ace Niko (Donald Glover), stoner brainiac Clay ( Evan Peters ) and Ava ( Sarah Bolger ), the cute newcomer who exists solely so that the other characters can explain things at length to her (and the audience) that they presumably already know—they manage to revive a dead dog. Inevitably, the dog doesn’t seem quite right afterwards and one character remarks that it might end up going Cujo on them, presumably because referring to the far more apt “Pet Sematary” might have seemed a little too on the nose for comfort.

Through circumstances too idiotic to go into here, the group has all their research taken over by a biotech firm and they are shut out of their own project. In an effort to prove that this work was theirs, they sneak back into the labs one night in order to replicate the experiment. Alas, it all goes higgledy-piggledy and Zoe winds up electrocuted. Remembering his vow as a mad movie scientist to first always do harm, the grieving Frank decides to zap her with the serum and bring her back. Again, it works but things are not entirely right with her either as she begins utilizing 100% of her brain’s functions to develop strange powers such as telekinesis, the ability to pull the others into her memories of a barely-buried childhood trauma and the habit of knowing exactly what everyone else is about to say. Now trapped inside the lab, the others find themselves being picked off one by one in grisly (though not grisly enough to violate the PG-13 rating) fashion while trying desperately to figure out a way to put a stop to what they have wrought before there can be the requisite final scene designed to set up a sequel.

If you think the above description was boring, trite and predictable, try sitting through it as it is unfolding. This isn’t a real horror movie—this is the kind of horror movie that the characters in a real horror movie watch in order to comment on the lameness of the genre before their authentic terrors begin. The screenplay by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater is a pastiche of elements cribbed from other films ranging from “Frankenstein” to “ Flatliners ” to, oddly enough, last summer’s action hit “ Lucy .” (To be fair, the latter is more of a coincidence since the film has apparently been sitting on a shelf since 2013.) The scares are almost entirely of the cheapo “BOO!” moments where someone unexpectedly pops into the frame for a quick jolt; while these can be effective when used sparingly, the film proceeds to run the technique into the ground in the first 10 minutes and then continues on with it. Meanwhile, the one surefire shock in a film of this sort—the bit where something thought to be lifeless is lying under a sheet and suddenly sits up—is handled so badly that the only screams are ones of frustration. To top things off, the entire thing is shot in such darkness that the mere act of looking at it becomes a chore that is hardly worth the effort.

Walking out of “The Lazarus Effect,” the only question I had is why so many talented people signed on for a project that by all rights is the kind of thing generally made by complete unknowns who then fervently try to deny its existence if they wind up making it big sometime down the line. Okay, I guess I can kind of understand why Olivia Wilde might have done it–after all, she gets to bark, drool, sleep four feet above the covers and deliver the immortal line “Did I just die?” in what may have struck her like an exceptionally loony episode of “House.” However, that doesn’t explain why talents like Duplass, Glover and Bolger would waste their time on such nothing roles. Even the director, David Gelb , has a better pedigree than one might expect: although this is his first narrative feature, he made a splash a couple of years ago with the hit documentary “ Jiro Dreams of Sushi .” He even gives an apparent shout-out to that previous effort in one scene in which he has Wilde eating a plate of sushi. Alas, the pieces of fish on her plate come closer to demonstrating recognizable signs of life than anything else on display here.

lazarus experiment movie

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

lazarus experiment movie

  • Donald Glover as Niko
  • Evan Peters as
  • Bruno Gunn as Fireman
  • Olivia Wilde as Zoe
  • Mark Duplass as Franck
  • Sarah Bolger as
  • Jeremy Slater
  • Luke Dawson

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The Lazarus Effect 's Empathetic Brand of Resurrection Horror

The low-budget, science-experiment-gone-wrong film explores the nightmare of coming back to life from the perspective of Zoe (Olivia Wilde), who's revived by her associates.

Medical journals have documented at least a few dozen cases of people who died and then, somehow, came back to life. The catchier term for this phenomenon is the "Lazarus syndrome," so named for the man raised from the dead by Jesus in Christian teaching—divine proof of God's dominion over life and death.

But in the new horror film The Lazarus Effect , this kind of reanimation is orchestrated by humans with disastrous consequences. The movie, produced by the same studio that made low-budget horror hits like the Paranormal Activity franchise and Insidious, is one of a number of films to explore the phenomenon of people brought back from the dead, but it's rare in that it does so, fleetingly, from the subject's perspective. Most supernatural stories about "resurrection" feature zombies or ghosts or other beings that aren't, strictly speaking, alive, and proper undead horror stories tend to focus more on the alarming experience of witnessing the phenomenon from the outside.

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The Lazarus Effect, on the other hand, has (short-lived) empathy for its undead character. In the film, a group of scientists bring a dog back to life with the help of a special serum injected into the brain and stimulated by electricity. When a trial run goes wrong, one of the scientists Zoe (Olivia Wilde) dies and is later revived. But strange things begin happening to her—she has visions of a childhood nightmare, she can move objects with her mind, and, this being a horror film, she's possessed by the sudden desire to murder everyone around her.

Soon, she can hear her colleagues (Mark Duplass, Evan Peters, Donald Glover) thinking things like, "That isn't really Zoe," "Something's not right with her," and, "We should never have brought her back." And when she becomes demonic and violent, the film suggests it's partly a consequence of feeling alienated and alone. The movie itself, it should be noted, is a non-frightening, overly ambitious mess, though there are flashes of excellence from David Gelb, who also directed the acclaimed documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi . But it does a fine job of conjuring up Zoe's paranoia and ultimately succeeds at being a cautionary tale against scientific hubris.

Perhaps the best recent on-screen, psychological exploration of what it's like to literally come back to life is the French television drama The Returned ( Les Revenants ), in which a small Alpine town is forced to grapple with the inexplicable return of several people who had died in over the span of decades. The supernatural-horror show follows not only the families and friends of the returned, but also the reanimated themselves, who have no memory of how they died or what it was like when they were dead. "Do I scare you? I scare myself," says one young character who, after meeting her twin again, breaks down into tears when her sister panics at the sight of her.

So why does this shift in perspective matter? Going inside the mind of the resurrected, or the person experiencing supernatural phenomena, opens the chance for less hackneyed, more psychologically resonant storytelling. It also taps into the anxiety associated with nature-defying technologies such as cloning , genetic engineering , bionic prosthetics , all of which in some way challenge, or threaten to broaden, the definition of what's "human." Naturally, when the division between life and death is blurred, questions of ethics arise. The Lazarus Effect and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein show how the stakes are raised when human agency is involved, and opinions tend to bifurcate along the lines of science (and rallying cries of “Progress!”) and religion (and the phrase “playing God”). “If we’re going to be asking big questions, we have to be ready for the answers,” Zoe says early on in the film. Of course, The Lazarus Effect (whose action is mostly derived from Zoe menacingly turning the lights on and off and appearing in different parts of the room) doesn't really answer those questions.

As an understated, minimal-gore, un-campy film The Lazarus Effect has the chance to do something different than its resurrection-horror predecessors like Re-Animator , Flatliners , and Pet Sematary . It feints in the direction of the gray, unknowable area between science and spirituality, only to indulge in some bad special effects and a climax that has some of The Descent' s claustrophobia but none of the terror. Given the low-budget film's bottle-episode feel, horror fans could've gotten extra mileage out of a disorienting and original psychological treatment. But for viewers intrigued but unsatisfied by the film's brief half-hour inside Zoe's unraveling mind, there's always The Returned. The show's haunting first season is on Netflix, and it's wrapping production of season two this month in preparation for a late-2015 debut.

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The Lazarus Experiment (TV story)

RealWorld

The Lazarus Experiment was the sixth episode of series 3 of Doctor Who . It saw regular writer Mark Gatiss take on an acting role and marked the Doctor's acceptance of Martha as his regular companion. It included a large number of " Harold Saxon " references and saw Francine Jones ' first involvement with his aides.

It once more brought up the Doctor's perspective on a long life; in his eyes, a long life only ensures one will end up alone as everyone and everything else turns to dust.

  • 5.1 Influences
  • 5.2 References
  • 6.1 Ratings
  • 6.2 Filming locations
  • 6.3 Production errors
  • 7 Continuity
  • 8 Home video releases
  • 9 External links
  • 10.2 Citations

Synopsis [ ]

To have an adventure investigating the unusual, there's no time like the present!

After travelling backwards, forwards and backwards again in time, Martha Jones has returned home. However, before the Tenth Doctor can bid farewell to her, he hears Professor Richard Lazarus announcing that he'll "change what it means to be human ." What could this mean? And could it lead to something far more dangerous than a simple scientific failure?

The TARDIS materialises in Martha's flat . The Tenth Doctor tells her that they had agreed — one trip and home. It is about twelve hours after they left, something the Doctor failed to do with Rose in his previous life . Martha's phone rings, but she does not pick it up; it is her mother Francine , saying that her sister Tish is on the news. Martha turns the television on and, alongside Tish, an elderly man, Professor Richard Lazarus , announces that tonight he "will change what it means to be human ." Though looking thoroughly perturbed at what was just said, the Doctor says goodbye to Martha and, oblivious to how upset she is, steps into the TARDIS. It dematerialises, but quickly rematerialises. The Doctor reemerges, saying, "No, I'm sorry, did he say he was going to change what it means to be human?". Evidently, he cannot resist this.

Hours later, it is night-time at Lazarus Laboratories . Professor Lazarus and Lady Thaw discuss the need for the experiment to work, with Thaw mentioning that Mr Saxon is funding their research. Lazarus tells Thaw not to worry as "our friend will get his money's worth." Tish comes in, asking if Lazarus would like to check over the guest list for the reception again. He clumsily hits on her, asking what kind of perfume she wears; she tells him "soap" and quickly excuses herself.

Outside, the Doctor and Martha are walking to the entryway of Lazarus Laboratories for the black-tie reception. The Doctor is making some last-minute inspections to his suit, making sure everything is in place; he complains about how something bad always happens when he wears black tie . Martha, who is wearing a cocktail dress, remarks that it is simply him, not the outfit and that she thinks it makes him look like James Bond in a way, flattering him.

Inside, they meet Martha's mother Francine and her brother Leo , though the Doctor only succeeds in arousing Francine's suspicion about his relationship with her daughter. Tish also meets the Doctor, wondering how he got in as he's not on the guest list; Martha explains the Doctor is her "plus one". Martha explains Tish works in the PR department before Tish corrects her; she's head of the PR department, having put together the party herself. The Doctor inquires what kind of experiment Lazarus is going to perform with the large capsule in the room, being labelled a "science geek" by Tish after using big words. He questions Martha as to what it means, seeming rather pleased with the answer.

The lights of the room dim and a spotlight focuses on Lazarus, who announces he is to perform a "miracle", which will outstrip all other human accomplishments in the field of science, even the splitting of the atom and Armstrong landing on the Moon. Declaring that they will wake tomorrow to a world changed forever, the elderly professor steps into the manipulator's capsule. Technicians flip the switch and the capsule flares to life with a blinding flash of light; four manipulator arms circle the capsule at breakneck speed while manipulating threads of light up and down it. As the machine builds in intensity, an alarm blares and the consoles smoke and spark. The Doctor notices that the system is overloading and jumps in to avert disaster. Lady Thaw demands that someone get the Doctor away from the controls, but the Doctor declares that if the machine explodes it will take the entire building with it. He pulls the plug, and the machine comes to a stop. Martha rushes forward at the Doctor's urging and yanks the door open.

The Lazarus Experiment 160

The rejuvenated Lazarus emerges.

The crowd advance slowly on the capsule. Out of the steam steps a young blond man; Lazarus. He smiles as he touches his newly rejuvenated face and declares that he is 76 years old, "And I am reborn!". Martha is stunned, questioning the Doctor as to what happened; the Doctor merely tells her that Lazarus has kept his word and changed what it meant to be human.

Lazarus is talking with the spectators with Lady Thaw, who is impressed he managed to do what he promised. Suddenly Lazarus sucks in a pained breath, takes a plate of snacks from a passing waiter and devours them rapidly. Despite Lady Thaw scolding him for his poor manners, Lazarus defends that he is famished. The Doctor steps up next to them, saying Lazarus is suffering from energy depletion so his body is trying to revert the lost energy by having him eat. Lazarus notes the Doctor seems awfully familiar with his work, to which the Doctor says he has had experience with a similar process . The Doctor tells him that he could not have thought of all the variables that could have happened. Lazarus scoffs at the Doctor's warnings, kissing Martha's hand farewell as he and Lady Thaw head up to his office.

The Doctor notes that Lazarus is being foolish; too bad they can't conduct a DNA test to find out what's happening with Lazarus. Smirking, Martha tells him that it's a good thing she just collected a DNA sample, waving her hand. The Doctor smiles at Martha, praising her quick thinking. In one of the labs, the Doctor and Martha look at a readout of Lazarus's DNA; it seems to spike and change, something which should be impossible. The Doctor reels off a lot of complicated scientific lingo but simplifies it for Martha's benefit: Lazarus hacked his own DNA and instructed it to rejuvenate. However, "something's been activated; something that won't let him stabilise, something that's trying to change him."

Meanwhile, Lazarus speaks with Lady Thaw in his office on the top floor, recounting a story about his childhood during World War II . Because of his work, Lazarus is likely to have a plaque placed upon his old home; however, he explains it was destroyed by a bombing, but the sentiment is nice. Thaw expresses her desire to be the next in line to be rejuvenated so they can continue their partnership both personally and professionally. Lazarus, however, recoils when she kisses him. He ridicules the idea of wasting another lifetime on her, prompting Thaw to ask if the process made him crueler; he jokes that not only did he learn cruelty from her, she has a gift for it. As she threatens to complain to Mr Saxon , Lazarus begins convulsing and falls to the floor. To Thaw's horror, Lazarus mutates into something horrendous. A scorpion-like tail raises itself and lunges at her.

Downstairs, a concerned Francine asks Tish and Leo whether Martha has ever mentioned the Doctor to them before. She worries there is "something going on", but Leo tries calming her down by saying Martha's found someone to be with. Lazarus returns to the reception, back to normal and wearing a different suit, and invites Tish upstairs with him. Tish, now willing to return his advances, follows without argument.

The Doctor and Martha emerge in Lazarus' office, searching for him. As Martha suggests trying back at the reception, her voice trails off as she spots a bony leg sticking out from behind the desk. Investigating, they find the shriveled husk of Lady Thaw; the Doctor says she had all the life energy drained to supply energy to the processes caused by Lazarus' fluctuating DNA. Worried he will kill again, they go back downstairs, only to learn that he has gone back upstairs with Tish. They rush off, the Doctor accidentally spilling a drink on Francine. A mysterious man replaces her drink and warns that Martha should be more careful in choosing her friends.

Lazarus takes Tish to the roof, where he shows her the nearby Southwark Cathedral and quotes T.S. Eliot , a quote the Doctor completes before they discuss the transformation; Lazarus believes he has perfected humanity by purging it of mortality, while the Doctor is aghast at his disregard for the laws of Nature. As they argue, Martha manages to get Tish away from Lazarus before he transforms. They stand, transfixed in horror, as they behold Lazarus' mutated form; resembling a huge, skeletal scorpion, a facsimile of Lazarus' face stares out of the monstrosity. The three of them flee indoors and the Doctor seals the door behind him. As they wait for the lift, Lazarus' attempts to smash the door down triggers a security lockdown; the lights dim, the lifts stop and the exits seal themselves, much to the confusion and slight panic of the guests. Rushing downstairs, the Doctor gives Martha the sonic screwdriver to unlock the doors, and warns everyone at the reception to evacuate. One woman refuses to believe this, stating jokingly that the biggest danger is choking on an olive. Suddenly, all heads turn as glass shatters and Lazarus appears on a balcony overlooking the reception area, roaring.

Now more inclined to listen, the assembled guests scream and scatter as Lazarus wreaks havoc, striking Leo in the head with a table. As Martha finally gets the doors open and the party-goers scramble down the stairs, Lazarus advances on the olive woman and deploys his stinger; the Doctor shouts for him to leave her alone, but too late. The guests still in the room avert their eyes as the woman's withered husk hits the floor and Lazarus turns towards a prone Francine and Leo. The Doctor draws Lazarus away from Francine by taunting him; he attempted to defy Nature, only for Nature to punish him. Lazarus chases the Doctor down a corridor. Martha examines Leo for a concussion, gets everyone out of the building, and goes back inside to help the Doctor despite Francine's protests. Tish guesses that "maybe she loves him". The enigmatic man who replaced Francine's drink earlier calls the Doctor "dangerous", and whispers in Francine's ear the things he says she "should know" about him.

TenMarthaInsideTheMachineLE

The Doctor tries to find a way out of Lazarus' machine.

The Doctor turns on the gas in a lab, hits the light switch and leaps away from the resulting fireball, but Lazarus survives. Martha hears the explosion and finds the Doctor as she runs toward its source. She returns the sonic screwdriver to the Doctor. Together they flee back to the reception area and end up hiding in the capsule of Lazarus' machine, on the Doctor's hunch that Lazarus is unlikely to destroy his own creation even to get at them.

The Doctor starts fiddling about with the wiring inside as the Lazarus creature futilely searches for a way in. Martha, still unsure of where it came from, inquires if it is alien but the Doctor nixes that; for once, the horrible creature trying to kill them is strictly human in origin. Martha reacts with disbelief, as the creature does not look even remotely human, but the Doctor explains that the machine unlocked something hidden away in Lazarus' genes ; an option which evolution rejected for humanity, but the potential for which still lies dormant. Martha likens it to Pandora's Box, but their ruminations are cut short as Lazarus switches the machine on. The Doctor "reverses the polarity" so that the capsule reflects the energy rather than receiving it, which it does explosively. The shockwave blasts the creature away, transforming Lazarus back to his normal self and apparently killing him. As they gaze upon the professor's naked body, Martha and the Doctor reflect on how pitiful he looks, the latter quoting T.S. Eliot: "This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

Outside, as the ambulance carrying Lazarus' body pulls away, Francine slaps the Doctor and warns him to keep away from Martha. Suddenly, all turn their heads when they hear a loud crash nearby. The Doctor, Martha and Tish take off and find that the ambulance has gone off the road. Opening up the back doors, they find that Lazarus, true to his namesake, has risen from the dead, drained the paramedics energy, killing them, and escaped.

Realising they are next to Southwark Cathedral , Tish guesses that Lazarus has taken shelter in it just like when he was hiding as a child during World War II . Inside is Lazarus in human form, draped in a red altar cloth; he writhes in pain as his body spasms, unwilling to stay human. The Doctor tells Martha he has a plan, but he needs to get Lazarus into the bell tower. Lazarus recalls how he took refuge during the London Blitz , hiding amongst the dead in the crypt. The Doctor says he was present during the Blitz, but Lazarus says that he is not old enough to have been there. "Neither are you," the Doctor jokes, prompting Lazarus to laugh. The two of them argue again about the benefits and curse of longevity. Lazarus states that he will feed soon, eyeing the Doctor; however, Martha instead tempts Lazarus to come after "fresher meat" as the Doctor is old and bitter.

Using herself as bait, Martha takes off with Tish as Lazarus gives chase. Heading up the stairs, the girls hear Lazarus scream, meaning he's transformed again. They reach the bell tower, where Tish questions what they are supposed to do; Martha tells her that this is where the Doctor told her to lure Lazarus. Tish is less than pleased with being bait. The Doctor commandeers the cathedral's pipe organ and amplifies it with the sonic screwdriver, playing as loud as he can.

The Lazarus Experiment 848

The Doctor watches Lazarus's death.

As Lazarus tries to get to the Jones sisters, he manages to knock Martha over the rail and leave her hanging on for dear life. Tish grabs Martha's hand, leaving both of them vulnerable to his sting. Realising that the music is too quiet, the Doctor boosts the organ's sound waves further, setting up a resonance in the bell above Lazarus that interferes with his sonic-based experiment. Lazarus falls to his death on the cathedral floor below, transforming one last time — back into the elderly man he once was. Martha reunites with the Doctor, who explains he was taught how to play piano (loudly) by Ludwig van Beethoven .

Back in Martha's flat, the Doctor offers Martha one more trip, but Martha refuses to go with him on that basis, as a mere passenger being given a treat. The Doctor says, "Okay, then, if that's what you want." She thinks he means to leave her again, but he indicates with a nod that she is welcome to rejoin him in the TARDIS on her terms, and admits she was "never really just a passenger". As the ship dematerialises, Martha's phone rings; it is Francine again. She warns Martha about "who this Doctor really is", saying, "This information comes from Harold Saxon himself. You're not safe!"

  • The Doctor - David Tennant
  • Martha Jones - Freema Agyeman
  • Tish Jones - Gugu Mbatha-Raw
  • Leo Jones - Reggie Yates
  • Francine Jones - Adjoa Andoh
  • Richard Lazarus - Mark Gatiss
  • Lady Thaw - Thelma Barlow
  • Olive Woman - Lucy O'Connell
  • Mysterious Man - Bertie Carvel
    and















 

by   •  With thanks to the  


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was uncredited for his organ performance.

Worldbuilding [ ]

  • The Doctor claims to have been taught how to play the pipe organ by Beethoven .
  • Harold Saxon is mentioned by Dr Lazarus, Lady Thaw and Francine.

Influences [ ]

  • In creating a 'mad scientist' story, Stephen Greenhorn was inspired by The Fly and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde . He also sought inspiration from Spider-Man villains Doctor Octopus and The Green Goblin .

References [ ]

  • Tish mentions Catherine Zeta-Jones .
  • The Doctor states that he has to turn the sound "to eleven", a reference to This is Spinal Tap .
  • Martha likens the Doctor's appearance when wearing a dinner jacket to James Bond ; the Doctor appears skeptical but flattered. The commentary track mentions the Doctor's loosening of his bow-tie as a " Daniel Craig moment".

Story notes [ ]

  • The working title for this episode was The Madness of Professor Lazarus .
  • This is the second time in the revived series when the Doctor jumps from an explosion, first seen in The Unquiet Dead (written by Mark Gatiss ).
  • Mark Gatiss ' appearance in this story makes him one of five people to have both written for and acted Doctor Who , and the first of the revived series. The others being Victor Pemberton , Derrick Sherwin , Glyn Jones and Toby Whithouse . Though Gatiss is one of only two (along with Whithouse) to have written multiple stories and he is the only one to have acted in multiple stories.
  • Mark Gatiss ' involvement with the Doctor Who franchise dates back to writing for the Virgin New Adventures novel series in the early 1990s, as well as appearing in and writing several independent spin-off video productions. Gatiss also voices " Danny Boy " in Victory of the Daleks , which he also wrote, reprises the role in A Good Man Goes to War (though both roles were uncredited), portrays Gantok in The Wedding of River Song (credited under the name "Rondo Haxton"), and Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart in Twice Upon a Time .
  • As the rejuvenated Lazarus, Mark Gatiss wears a wig he previously wore in an episode of The League of Gentlemen , playing a veterinary surgeon based on Peter Davison 's character of Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small . When the Doctor Who make-up department told him they didn't have time to get a new wig made, he offered to use the League of Gentlemen wig that he had at home. The BBC ended up hiring it from him for a hundred pounds. Gattis recounts the story in great detail on the audio commentary for The Lazarus Experiment .
  • The name "Lazarus" is a reference to the Biblical man who was resurrected from the dead, similar to being given youth back. The comparison is made explicit when he escapes the ambulance and the Doctor says, "Lazarus, back from the dead. Should've known, really."
  • The set piece for the capsule of Lazarus's hypersonic soundwave manipulator is actually the redecorated descent capsule from The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit .
  • Lazarus says he once lived above a butcher's shop as a child. In his role as Hilary Briss in The League of Gentlemen , Mark Gatiss is well known for playing a butcher.
  • When Martha introduces the Doctor to Francine, Francine's response is, "Doctor what?"
  • David Tennant and Mark Gatiss had previously appeared together in the Big Finish audio story Sympathy for the Devil and the 2005 remake of The Quatermass Experiment .
  • There was no "NEXT TIME..." trailer at the end of this episode, instead there was a "COMING UP..." trailer to show what was still to come in the series after the 2 week break due to the Eurovision 2007, as stated in the end credits, "Dr Who will return in two weeks". The DVD release changes this trailer for an actual NEXT TIME trailer instead.
  • An old head-cast of Vincent Price was tracked down and used by Neill Gorton to add an aged and wrinkled look to the prosthetics Mark Gatiss wore when playing the elderly Dr Lazarus.
  • Originally Professor Lazarus was working on developing invulnerable synthetic skin. This was dropped because Russell T. Davies feared that this might be part of the plot of Spider-Man 3 , which was due for release around the same time the episode would likely air.
  • A scene cut from the episode, but included as an extra with the DVD release, reveals that the Doctor participated in the writing of the United States Declaration of Independence and in fact carries a copy of the first draft folded up in the pocket of his dinner jacket.
  • This is the first episode since Smith and Jones where Martha is wearing different clothes other than her jeans and leather jacket.
  • Professor Lazarus was originally named Professor Anger.
  • Stephen Greenhorn wanted to set his narrative around the Thames Flood Barrier , only to learn that it would already feature prominently in The Runaway Bride .
  • Tish's real name was originally Patricia. It was changed to Letitia in dubbing.
  • The original plan was to hire two different actors to play the older and younger Lazarus.
  • This episode formed the third production block of season three along with Gridlock .
  • A major location in the script was St Paul's Cathedral ; it could be viewed from Lazarus' office, and was the site of the climactic confrontation with the Lazarus monster. Arrangements were made to film material at St Paul's itself, only for its administrators to back out at a late stage due to concerns about the sequence in which Lazarus fell from the Whispering Gallery . The production team instead approached both the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster and the Royal Albert Hall , but neither was ultimately deemed suitable. Instead, the action was relocated to Southwark Cathedral, given its location in London. This forced a number of amendments to the dialogue, such as the elimination of references to Christopher Wren .
  • A scene cut from the episode, but included as an extra with the DVD release, reveals that the Doctor participated in the writing of the Declaration of Independence and in fact carries a copy of the first draft folded up in the pocket of his dinner jacket. An outtake of this scene is featured on the DVD as well, in which the Doctor has completely unfolded the document, only for David Tennant to realise that he and Freema Agyeman have run out of track.
  • Several of Stephen Greenhorn 's initial ideas had to be discarded because they were too similar to concepts being developed for the first season of Torchwood .
  • Stephen Greenhorn happened to working on Wide Sargasso Sea for Julie Gardner . In the spring of 2006, he met with her and script editor Simon Winstone to express his admiration for the programme's revival, and his interest in working on it. This led to a discussion with Russell T. Davies , who surprised Greenhorn with an offer to write for the programme. In particular, he wanted an episode set on modern-day Earth involving a "mad scientist" character

Ratings [ ]

  • 7.19 million viewers - BARB Final Rating [1]
  • 6.7 million viewers - Overnight
  • 0.98 million viewers - BBC3 Repeat

Filming locations [ ]

  • The National Museum of Wales was used for the exterior and several interiors of Lazarus Laboratories .
  • For the exteriors of Southwark Cathedral , the real cathedral was used. But the interiors are from Wells Cathedral in Wells, Somerset . (Coincidentally, Wells is also the location of the Wookey Hole Caves , where Revenge of the Cybermen was partly filmed.)
  • The Senedd Building in Cardiff Bay was used as the venue of the black tie demonstration of the Genetic Manipulation Device which the mutated Lazarus crashes and attempts to kill Francine and Leo, but chases the Doctor after he insults Lazarus.

Production errors [ ]

  • As the Doctor circles Lazarus in the Cathedral, a person in sunglasses (presumably a memeber of the filming crew) can be seen in the background of one of the shots.
  • In a later shot, the altar cloth slides partway down Lazarus’s back as he contorts in pain. However in the next shot it has moved back onto his shoulders.
  • When the Doctor begins playing the organ in the Cathedral, he tries to pull out the same drawknob twice.

Continuity [ ]

  • The Doctor references experiencing the Blitz first hand, which he did in his ninth incarnation . ( TV : The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances ) He would later do so again, in his eleventh incarnation . ( TV : Victory of the Daleks )
  • The Doctor leaving in his TARDIS only to quickly come back to Martha mirrors when the Ninth Doctor did likewise to Rose Tyler . ( TV : Rose )
  • Lazarus' project insignia, a circular pattern of circles seen many times within the laboratory, is the same pattern later seen on the Master's ring . ( TV : Last of the Time Lords )
  • The Doctor references "something bad happening" whenever he wears a tuxedo . ( TV : Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel ) This later happens to him again. ( TV : Voyage of the Damned )
  • Martha states the Doctor is her "Plus One." The Ninth Doctor said the same of Rose Tyler when watching the last day of planet Earth . ( TV : The End of the World )
  • Jackie Tyler was the last mother to slap the Doctor. ( TV : Aliens of London )
  • The Doctor mentions he "reversed the polarity", something his third incarnation did often. ( TV : The Five Doctors , etc.) When his tenth and eleventh incarnations meet, they run into issues when they both do so. ( TV : The Day of the Doctor )
  • Martha states a dislike she had for being only a passenger while with the Doctor, which leads to him taking her on as a full time companion. After defeating the Monk , Steven Taylor stated a liking for being part of the TARDIS crew, only to be told by Vicki that the Doctor was the crew and she and Steven were the passengers. ( TV : The Time Meddler )

Home video releases [ ]

The Complete David Tennant Years DVD Region 1 US cover

  • This episode was released with Daleks in Manhattan , Evolution of the Daleks and 42 on the Series 3 Volume 2 DVD.
  • It is also part of the series 3 DVD box set.
  • A deleted scene establishes that the Doctor once helped Thomas Jefferson draft the US Declaration of Independence, and he specifically takes credit for the reference to "the pursuit of happiness". The Doctor finds the first draft of the document in his tuxedo pocket.

External links [ ]

  • Official BBC Website The Lazarus Experiment
  • The Lazarus Experiment at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
  • The Discontinuity Guide to: The Lazarus Experiment at The Whoniverse
  • The Lazarus Experiment at The Locations Guide

Footnotes [ ]

  • ↑ While The Lazarus Experiment begins 12 hours after TV : Smith and Jones (and by extension, four days before the Toclafane invasion at the end of The Sound of Drums ), different dates are given in other media. According to PROSE : The Paradox Moon , the Toclafane invade Earth on 23 June 2007 , placing The Lazarus Experiment on 19 June . According to AUDIO : Recruits , Smith and Jones takes place in March 2008, and by extension, so does The Lazarus Experiment . According to PROSE : The Secret Lives of Monsters , Smith and Jones takes place on Sunday 4 June in an undisclosed year, thus placing The Lazarus Experiment on Monday 5 June , a date that falls on neither 2007 nor 2008 in the real world.

Citations [ ]

  • ↑ Doctor Who - consolidated ratings
  
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lazarus experiment movie

Doctor Who (TV Series)

The lazarus experiment (2007), full cast & crew.

lazarus experiment movie

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Cast (in credits order) verified as complete  

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Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
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Cinematography by .

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Editing by 

Casting by , production design by , art direction by .

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... technical director (uncredited)
... 3d artist (uncredited)

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Location Management 

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Music Department 

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Script and Continuity Department 

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Additional Crew 

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