I usually give horror movies the limit of one false jump scare before writing it off. While “The Lazarus Effect” doesn’t exceed that, it also doesn’t take the time or effort to show us the studio has a good idea of how to do horror.

From the producer every moviegoer who’s seen any high grossing horror movie within the past few years should be familiar with, Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse Productions, comes yet another played out tale about the dangers of playing God.

This time around, our ambitious group of hopefuls include Zoe (Olivia Wilde), Frank (Mark Duplass), Niko (Donald Glover), Clay (Evan Peters) and Ava (Sarah Bolger).

Producing a serum that apparently brings the dead back to life, the group is able to successfully perform this experiment on a dead dog. But — surprisingly — things don’t seem quite right afterwards. The dog, Rocky, appears to have disturbingly increased neurological activity and aggression, often displaying this scary behavior throughout the first act.

So our characters should have at least learned enough to prevent further complications, right?

Fast forward to the middle of the second act. After political and legal problems, the group is forced to practice the experiment one more time to prove that they are, in fact, the true pioneers of the project. As you may have guessed by the extremely revealing trailers and one-note posters, things go horribly wrong and Zoe ends up dying.

Then, as you may have correctly guessed again, Frank decides to use the serum on Zoe in attempt to bring her back to life only to find much success in the form of the biggest mistake in his life.

Controversial to what I said earlier, “Lazarus” does have a few interesting points in its premise, including an interesting foresight on what hell can be and raising several questions that test the heart’s desire over logic: If you had the chance to bring your loved ones back from the dead, would you?

Also, Wilde is exceptionally effective and creepy — which is possibly the best thing about “Lazarus” — using seduction and a calm, cool tone to achieve the chilling character she aims for.

“Lazarus” could have capitalized on these advantages with effective scares and fleshed out characters, but, instead, we get horror via an excessive use of jump scares, uninventive cinematography and characters we can’t truly sympathize with.

We care about Clay because he’s Evan Peters, and we care about Niko because he’s Childish Gambino — that’s it. As for Bolger’s character, she’s a plot device for exposition. And while Duplass’ character shows some sense after it hits the fan, we can’t ignore he’s the reason why they’re in this mess.

“The Lazarus Effect,” while it can be a fun movie to watch, ignores all the good elements it has and embraces the predictable scare tactics seen from miles away. As a result, we get jump scares driven by sound effects that might as well be replaced by “boo!” and a villain who’s basically a demented iteration of Scarlett Johansson’s “Lucy.”