Lazareth is available to rent or buy from Monday, May 13.
“Aunty, we found a ripped boy in the woods. Can we keep him? Can we play with him?” When teenage sisters Maeve (Sarah Pidgeon) and Imogen (Katie Douglas) stumble across an injured, tattooed, muscular, yet weak young man in the woods named Owen (Asher Angel), it is a bit like finding a winning lottery ticket, first, there’s the joy and excitement of everything you could do, before those feelings give way to fear and apprehension of how it could change your life.
The reason for this fear and trepidation is evident: the girls live in an isolated house they call “Lazareth.” Surrounded by deep forests and far from the remnants of the once bustling towns and cities that surrounded them, the girls are cared for by their Aunt Lee (Ashley Judd), who defends their ark with a shotgun from any unsuspecting travellers or interlopers. Lazareth is a cradle of safety and security in their post-pandemic world, a world decimated by a killer virus that took the girl’s parents in its early days.
Eagle-eyed readers may think this all sounds somewhat familiar; those who followed our coverage of the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2021 may remember a delightfully twisted tale of a post-pandemic world and a “Glasshouse” where a mother protected her three daughters and cognitively impaired son against anyone seeking to invade the ark they called home. In Glasshouse, like Lazareth, the arrival of a sexy, mysterious man shook the foundations of their isolated home. Of course, I am sure this similarity is a mere coincidence in writer/director Alec Tibaldi’s tale of fragile safety, deceit, uncertainty and the power of sex and desire.
There’s no doubt Lazareth steers a different course than Kelsey Egan’s superior film in some key areas as it attempts to embrace the classic home invasion thriller. Still, at its core, it is about the choices, desires, and emotions held hostage by a serene yet isolated sanctuary of safety. Judd’s protective, loving, yet deceitful matriarch is beautifully portrayed throughout, as is the confusion, uncertainty, and growing desire of Maeve and Imogen, as well as their need for self-determination and escape. However, the same can’t be said for Asher Angel’s Owen, who often feels like nothing more than a slab of toned meat for the girls to drool over and eventually play with.
The problem with Lazareth is its attempt to walk the line between an adult and teen thriller. For example, the simmering desire and sexual intrigue are kept under lock and key, never allowing for a full-blooded exploration of how desire and sex can change community structures and individual behaviours. Likewise, the thriller elements feel constrained, with Tibaldi unsure whether to take the movie down the adult path it deserves or maintain a teen thriller aesthetic. As a result, unlike Glasshouse in 2021, Lazareth feels confused and unsure of its own potential narrative strengths.
For those looking for a simple pandemic-oriented thriller with some solid performances and a few interesting ideas, Lazareth scrapes by, but anyone looking for some meat on the bones would be best placed seeking out Kelsey Egan’s bloody Garden of Eden in Glasshouse.
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