Stormy ominous weather. A spookily underlit hallway with a little girl. Burning walls and dolls. Clawing hands under doors.

Watching the trailer for "The Lazarus Effect," it all seems like horror movie business as usual and then, wait, Olivia Wilde is in this? And hold on a second, is that indie king and "The League" star Mark Duplass? Here? As the lead in a PG-13 horror flick? Why? "Community" star and rapper Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) too? And Evan Peters, whose all-too-brief turn as Quicksilver stole "X-Men: Days of Future Past" out from under the likes of Jackman, Fassbender and Lawrence? All under the direction of David Gelb, whose last film was – you guessed it – "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," the utterly fascinating and delightful doc about a legendary 85-year-old sushi master?

What’s an early year PG-13 horror movie doing with such an overqualified and overall just plain odd cast? I have so many questions!

Too bad the actual movie itself isn’t as surprising or unpredictable as its IMDB page, relying on the same tried and tired horror clichés, tropes and scares for success.

Wilde and Duplass star as Frank and Zoe, a playful but strongly motivated duo – both romantically and scientifically – working on a serum and treatment that, as the biblical reference in the title implies, could bring the dead back to life. Always a good idea. After years of research and failed testing, however, the team – Glover plays the team shy nerd, Peters the team genius goofball stoner … but with a Blu e-cigarette? – finally nets a breakthrough, bringing a dead dog back to life. Never mind that he eerily stares at Zoe while she sleeps or explodes out of his cage and ravages the lab.

 To be fair, it’s hard to pay much attention to a demon zombie dog when a rival company (led by a Ray Wise cameo) is buying out their lab and stealing their research – and the future credit. In desperation, the gang secretly busts in after hours to run and record evidence of their work. In the process, though, a freak accident kills Zoe. If only there was a bag of resurrection juice close by OH WAIT; THEY HAVE THAT!

The emergency re-animation – ethics and logic, be damned – works, but something’s predictably off about Zoe 2.0. And judging by the dramatic increase in flickering lights and increasingly unnerving behavior – eerie head tilts, weird psychic flashes – it seems she would like to share some not-so-fun gifts and photos from her quick vacation to the afterlife in the worst, creepiest way.

Gelb gives "The Lazarus Effect" a kind of polished and stylish mid-’00s music video sheen. It’s creepy enough – the constant nods to cameras hints at a feeling of paranoia or, even scarier, the tease of found footage – and the extremely Fincherian opening credit sequence – hyper-edited flesh, tubes and bubbling oozes with a spiny invader slithering about – is attention-snatchingly nifty.

None of this, however, helps Gelb make the movie feel any bit fresh or actually frightening (seriously, watch his "Jiro Dreams of Sushi; unless you’re a fish, you’ll love it). Almost every scare littered throughout "Lazarus" is a jump scare and not a particularly well-crafted one either. Each one is derivative and obviously set up; a person expects to find something under a sheet, or a character moving close to a seemingly dead patient, or the lights start flickering. And once they start in this movie, they never stop. They’re cheap and predictable, and by the end, one ineffective scare even does all the screaming for the audience. Gelb struggles to even get sufficient chills from the movie's big, unpleasant serum needle. Even in non-horror movies, that's normally automatic.

The only thing in greater supply than limp jump scares are clichés, like the aforementioned strobe-like lab lighting and the poor cell service. Despite being genius scientists, the characters behave mostly like morons, wandering around looking and calling out for obviously possessed demon dogs or former friends. Clearly disturbed Zoe is trusted for infinitely too long, and when one character warns Frank that the dog’s brain activity is unusual and Cujo-esque, of course he takes the undead pup home. Come on, movie; the black guy even dies first. Plus, there’s their whole "playing God and bringing back a person from death" decision that has never, ever ended well.

Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater’s script actually mixes in several intriguing plot elements amongst the tedious tropes. The blend of life and death with science and religion gets a conversation or so, as well as the ethics of resurrection ("The Lazarus Effect: Actually, it’s about ethics in medical research") and a "Lucy"-like diversion into amplified brain usage. OK, that last one is just silly.

Still, the movie drops these potential-rich ideas just as soon as it picks them up. "If we’re going to be asking big questions," Zoe warns, "we have to be ready for the answers." Not so for "The Lazarus Effect." Instead, it hones in on none, developing into a jump scare-filled and confused muddle – made worse by the predictable curse of the overblown CGI-filled horror ending.

Unsurprisingly, the impressive cast serves as the film’s very own life-preserving serum, injecting just a touch of life into what’s at best another run-of-the-mill possession of the month. Duplass invests his tiresome horror movie idiot scientist with more-than-expected inner life and humor; the same can be said for Peters and Glover, both playing their familiar roles – goofy smartass and sweetly forlorn loser – with some comfortable energy.

Wilde, however, is the standout of the bunch. The actress’ piercing eyes and sharp and angular features make for a striking horror figure, and when the script sets her viciously wild(e) through the lab, she dives into the role. She’s a creepy diabolical delight, deviously smiling and winking, playing coy one moment only to head-tilted predator a second later. Shame about the rest of the formulaic mess of a movie around her and her cast mates.

The real final stake in the movie’s alive-then-dead-then-alive heart though? For a film that supposedly runs an appropriately brisk 83 minutes, "The Lazarus Effect" feels much, much longer. Much like its talented cast and crew, it’s yet another promising factoid from the film’s IMDB page that it sadly can’t live up to on the big screen.