OLVIA WILDE IN THE LAZARUS EFFECT

2015 rating: **1/2

The best thing about THE LAZARUS EFFECT needs to be mentioned right up front: In a movie taking place almost entirely inside a basement laboratory dealing with a hit-or-miss experiment, this could have been filmed in that trendy and annoying shaky camera chronicling perspective, and it's not... After all, how would you record a person's dream? And Olivia Wilde's Zoe keeps having a pretty nasty one.

Yet most of the 90-minute ride has a group of scientists, headed by Zoe and her husband Mark, trying to bring back... things from the dead. Starting with a pig... failed. Then a dog... success, kinda. The poor pooch turns out giving CUJO a run for his money, sans the body count: That's up to our formidable leading lady...

And it's too bad EFFECT isn't an effective horror flick, instead resembling one of those Straight-To-Videos you'd rent for cheap thrills. Because Wilde, with tight cheekbones and glaring eyes, has the perfect aura of a devilish, mischievous foe. Being the first human to be revived (and eventually garnering LUCY like powers), her initial expressions – as she starts turning on her workmates – are really quite spooky. It's a shame the rest of the movie doesn't follow her lead, or live up to her potential. OVERALL RANK: Jedi, Rebel, Droid, Sith.