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Film: Lizzie Lazarus
Year: 2024
Director: Aviv Rubinstien
Writer: Aviv Rubinstien
Starring: Lianne O’Shea, Omar Maskati and Megan Oesterreich
Review:
This was a film that I got the chance to see thanks to Alex from Simply Legendary Publicity. This is coming exclusively to Screambox. When I saw that, I was intrigued since early in the year it can be difficult to find new releases. That made it all that much easier to agree to check this out since they tend to have films I enjoy. Other than that, there was a reference in the press release that caught my eye. I’ll come back to that later.
Synopsis: Summer Solstice, 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods looking for a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But what secrets will come back with it?
Where I’ll start is that we have a fun way to catch our attention. There is a river with Lizzie (Megan Oesterreich) lying in it. She is singing a song that was rather catchy. It made me wonder if this was going to be a musical. I’ll assure you that it is not, but I still wanted to relay this information about how it starts.
We then shift over to what the synopsis said. There is Bethany (Lianne O’Shea) and Eli (Omar Maskati) carrying a body through the woods at night. The reason is that they need to get to an area that is deep in this area before the Summer Solstice. The body they are carrying belongs to Lizzie. Bethany is her sister and Eli is her boyfriend. It sounds like they got into a fight, Lizzie left and then got into a car accident where she crashed into the river. Eli feels guilty since she left his house. It was Bethany who came to him with a way they might be able to help her.
Aside from getting to know them during this walk, we do flashbacks to things in the past. Bethany found an incantation in a book at the library. She brought this to Eli as she needed help. He agreed. It is during this hike that question if what they’re doing is right. They also wonder if they should bring her back. It sounds like she had suicidal tendencies. Not everything is as it seems though and there are secrets as to the truth of what is happening.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start would be that this is an interesting way to tell the story. I already brought up how we get this odd title sequence where Lizzie looks rough from something. We’ll learn it was an accident. She sings this opening song and just gives this an odd atmosphere. It is from there that we get to know the two lead characters, Bethany and Eli. We see that they don’t know each other well. They have different things that they know about each other through Lizzie but haven’t directly spoken. It makes it a slow-burn, because it is just walking and talking. There are flashbacks edited in to help fill in more backstory as well.
Now that I’ve set that up, this is a character study of these three. First, I’ll start with Bethany. She is a conspiracy theorist. What is interesting there though is that she seems like me. I don’t think that she truly believes them, but they are good talking points. What is annoying here is that she will bring them up after Eli says something as what feels like a way to rebuff him. We do see that it gets on his nerves. There does seem to be more to this part of her personality. She clearly loves her sister and it is through this journey that she might not know her as well as she thought. O’Shea is good here in this role. She makes it feel real.
Then the person she spends the runtime with is Eli. He is a psychological major. I do see things that I do with him as well. He analyzed things that happened with Lizzie. It doesn’t remove his guilt. He doesn’t fully believe what they’re doing will work. Since he agreed and started this trek, he wants to see it through. This is something that I’d do. I don’t believe that playing with a Ouija board will result in me becoming possessed. That doesn’t change the fact that I won’t mess with one. He wants to see if this ritual will work. If it does, then he can apologize. If it doesn’t, it gives an interesting story down the line. Maskati is also good in his role. He plays well off Bethany.
I’ll then lump a couple things in here. First would be the character of Lizzie. She’s interesting because we only get flashbacks of her. We see that she looks happy at times. There’s also this part where we learn that she was suicidal. Neither of the two that are bringing her body to this special place know if she meant to kill herself or was it an accident. Oesterreich is solid here with using facial expressions since she doesn’t have much dialogue. Then the other part is where they’re going. This place out in the woods is supposed to be magical. It is here that it feels inspired by Pet Semetary. I do like the fact that the rules here are stricter. They have a time constraint, so anything that slows them down could ruin this ritual. It does go cosmic with this power, older than anything we know and needing to get there to bring Lizzie back. This kept me intrigued.
I wanted to shift gears and go into filmmaking. I’ll warn here that this is a slow burn. This is dialogue heavy. I’ll give credit as this hides the budget by having these two main characters, dragging a dead body through the wilderness to where they need to go. What I’ll say though is that the payoff was worth it. I did guess part of it but wasn’t fully expecting everything that we got there. I will say that the cinematography and framing were good to capture where they are hiking through. Other than that, this has limited effects. It also doesn’t need them. Using shadows helps there. It also adds creepiness. The sound design adds to that, especially when our characters are hearing things in the darkness. That tends to be something most viewers can connect with. I’d say in general, this is well-made.
There isn’t much more to discuss for acting since I said how good our three leads were. The rest rounded this out for what was needed. In conclusion, this is an interesting route to go to tell the story. This is a slow burn and dialogue heavy. I’ll say that O’Shea and Maskati carry that, bringing their characters to life. The payoff was good, that does save this for me. This is well-made with the cinematography, framing and sound design helping. I do have to say that this won’t be for everyone. If what I said sounds interesting, give this a watch to see how you felt.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10