Silly horror movies are awesome. I’m gonna go on record here and say that Ronny Yu’s 2003 horror orgy Freddy vs. Jason is one of my absolute favorites. Yes…I said it! (It feels so good to come clean.) It’s hilarious, fun, and in some ways a precursor to the superhero mash-ups so fashionable in today’s multiplexes. Thoughtful horror movies are awesome, too; Splice, the 2009 film by genre great Vincenzo Natali, is an imaginative “thou shalt not play God” cautionary tale full of wonderful pseudoscience and body horror that, while delectably genre-tastic, has still got a brain about it and poses some interesting ethical quandaries.

David Gelb’s The Lazarus Effect is a medical horror thriller that tries to be dumb fun, but ends up being just plain dumb. It tries to be thoughtful, too, but again: just plain dumb. Not campy enough, not smart enough–this is a movie that paces back and forth, unable to commit to any one direction. It winds up lost in the middle of nowhere, a sort of genre-movie limbo reserved only for the most listless of wares. Legend refers to this mysterious place as “the bargain bin”.

At the center of the film’s plot are married scientists Zoe (Olivia Wilde) and Frank (Mark Duplass), who have discovered the key to waking the dead: they zap some white goop with electricity, spout some vaguely science-sounding nonsense (they might as well be chanting “ooga-booga ooga-booga”), flip some switches and…voila! They bring a dead blind dog back to life (his sight restored, no less)! They call the white goop “the Lazarus serum”, a miracle drug engineered to “bring someone back” from the great beyond. According to the giddy science duo, its purpose is to extend the window surgeons have to resuscitate immediately following a flatline. But let’s be real: this is immortality they’re messing with.

Joining Zoe and Frank in their sparsely-lit, unnecessarily shadowy lab (because horror movie) in the bowels of a fictitious California university are their two assistants, Clay (Evan Peters) and Niko (Donald Glover), and Eva (Sarah Bolger), a college student making a documentary about the team’s breakthrough for a class project (she’s really just there to be our surrogate). The team is left in a state of awe following their canine resurrection, but the dog’s strange behavior–it doesn’t eat, doesn’t want to play, looks clinically miserable–has alarmed Clay, who fears the ol’ pooch could “go Cujo” on them if they’re not careful. When Zoe and Frank bring the dog home (yes, they’re that stupid, and yes, they are also somehow scientists), dog hops on their bed and looms over Zoe as she sleeps. This shot, like the rest of the movie, is meant to evoke, uh…something (laughter, fear, suspense–I dunno), but doesn’t really stimulate anything; the dog stares blankly at Zoe, we stare blankly at the dog staring at Zoe. Crickets.

What follows is a torturously predictable series of events, all of which ape from other, better movies. When the big bad corporation that funds the school confiscates all of the team’s equipment and threatens manufacture the serum for profit, the nerd-squad sneaks into the lab late at night to replicate the experiment and document the process, beating the suits to the punch. An accident occurs during the experiment and one of them dies and…need I go on? Oh alright, alright. For the sake of journalism, I guess. One of them dies during the experiment and is hastily ushered back into the world of the living. But guess what? They don’t come back the same! Now they’re evil! Bwahahaha!

The generic jump-scares and store-brand horror imagery (floating furniture, little girl standing in long hallway, blacked-out “evil eyes”) pile up like shovels of dirt on the movie’s grave, and all the while we’re desperate for a breath of fresh air–a new idea, a kill we haven’t seen before–anything to save us from the blood ‘n’ guts coma we’re slipping into. But alas, the film never breaks loose from convention. Its most earnest attempt is when Zoe and Frank have a theological impasse early in the film about what happens to us at the moment of death. Frank thinks we hallucinate as a result of our brain flooding our body with DMT, Zoe thinks the DMT is meant to usher our soul from this plane to the next. But the debate is essentially only an explanation for the nutty things we see later in the movie rather than real food for thought.

What hurts the most is that Gelb managed to assemble such an exceptional cast. It feels misguided to have a capable funnyman like Glover play a low-key everyman, while Duplass, who plays a great low-key everyman, instead plays a frantic, senseless mad scientist. (Duplass is much better casted in last year’s The One I Love, an excellent sci-fi film you should run to right now if you haven’t seen it.) Wilde doesn’t fit her role either, her slinky charm feeling at odds with Zoe’s violent mental collapse late in the movie.

If you want to have some raucous, childish fun, go watch Freddy vs. Jason, be ready to laugh, and leave pretension at the door. If you fancy a moody chiller that’ll give your brain a little something more to chew on, Splice it up. The Lazarus Effect tries to do what those movies do so well, but gets lost along the way and mucks it all up, leaving us dead cold. The characters in this forgettable piece of horror schlock can “bring back” all the dead dogs and dead people they want; just please, please don’t bring me back. I don’t want to go back.

It has been said that the history of sushi is so long that nothing new could be invented but that is where the passionate Jiro Ono comes in. Just as the title suggests, Jiro literally dreams of sushi. David Gelb’s documentary is about a man who has dedicated his entire life to the art behind sushi making. While it certainly convinces you that all other sushi is inferior to his, from a documentary stand point it stayed a little too close to the surface.

We are introduced to Jiro Ono who is an 85 year-old sushi master who runs his sushi bar appropriately named Jiro. A prolific food writer explains that of all the sushi places he has been to in Tokyo, Jiro’s place is by far the best. Other culinary professionals agree that Jiro is one of the greatest sushi masters in the world. Which makes sense as to why reservations to eat at his $300-a-plate restaurant must be made one month in advance.

Jiro explains that once you have figured out what you want to do for a living you must immerse yourself into it and dedicate your life to mastering it. That is his secret to success. He practices what he preaches as he has been working at the same job for over 70 years now. Jiro is a perfectionist who is constantly trying to improve his product as he thinks he still has not reached the peak of his skills.

At the age of nine Jiro left home and was told that he has no home to come back to. Because he had to work in order to survive before he was even a teenager, it is undoubtedly the reason why he is such a hard worker today. He practically breathes passion and it shows in his work.

Each vendor that they buy from specializes in what they sell, so they have a different vendor that they buy their tuna from than the one they buy their shrimp from. Some of the most interesting footage is when they visit these vendors. Of course, each vendor has good relationships with Jiro. They hold high standards when they buy fish because they know he expects the highest quality.

The documentary gives a brief background on The Michelin Guide. The guide first began in France in 1900 and is considered one of the highest honors to receive in the culinary world. Inspectors look for the quality of the food first, then originality and finally consistency. Jiro received a perfect three star rating even though the restaurant only seats 10 and the bathroom was located outside the premises.

It is not until the last 15 minutes of Jiro Dream of Sushi that any kind of conflict arises in this documentary. It touches on the subject of over-fishing and how the governments should be regulating the catching of young fish (specifically tuna). Because sushi is getting so popular the demand for fish is rising more and more each day. He pleas for businesses to balance profit with preserving natural resources.

The other issue I had with the documentary is that it could have expanded a little more on Jiro’s personal life. Sure, it did touch on his past and on his sons that are set to take over the business when he passes away. But it was too busy focusing on his current status than it did showing how he achieved it. And although he mentions his wife once or twice, we are never see her or told anything about her.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi preaches on more than one occasion that one should constantly be pushing themselves to work harder every day. The biggest fault is that it did not show what makes Jiro Ono tick. Also, it chose to focus more on his success than how he got there. The documentary was shot similar to how the cuts of sushi were shown, precise and well presented. One thing after watching the documentary is certain; you will walk away feeling hungry.