Lazareth is a viral outbreak thriller that tries very hard but has internal logical consistency issues that are hard to ignore. Your reaction to such a thing will depend on how much patience you have for this somber, internally focused film.

It stars Ashley Judd as a woman taking care of two girls in the aftermath of a plague. They live isolated in the middle of a forest, separated and in hiding from other survivors. When the girls stumble on a wounded survivor (a cute guy, of course), they nurse him back to health.

The film has a slow, somber pace that I struggled remaining engaged with… but it was well shot, well edited, and somewhat intriguing. I say “somewhat” there just because this premise has been done before. People voluntarily or otherwise living in the woods, worried what’s out there will ruin their peaceful isolation. This flick does all that well enough but not amazingly so.

The biggest problem I had was a somewhat underwhelming reveal in the third act. It’s not too surprising and its not badly told… but it does create a huge logic gap when it comes to the survivor… and the final scenes of the film.

I can’t get these problems out of my head… and the more I think about it, the lower my score goes. But there’s still enough good to give it a very “maybe you’ll like it?” kind of rating. It’s acted well, it has nice scenery, and a lonely soundscape. It teeters though due to perhaps too much quiet isolation and those <shakes tiny fist> logic problems.

Score: 74