(Mini Series) Harlan Coben's Lazarus - A Pretty Interesting Psychological Horror Series with Multiple Surprising Twists

I was not aware there would be this new series to be released on Prime Video earlier. But when I got notification yesterday and read a bit on the synopsis, I was immediately intrigued and gave it a try. Having only 6 episodes where all of them were released at the same time, made it easy for me to complete the whole series last night. All right then, I'll just get right to it.

Brief Story Line

When forensic psychiatrist Joel Lazarus aka Laz (Sam Claflin -Enola Holmes, Adrift etc) was informed that his father, the experienced psychiatrist Doctor Jonathan Lazarus (Bill Nighy - The Wild Robot, Love Actually etc) had shot himself, he immediately came back to his home town. Laz did not believe that his father would have committed suicide, though his sister Jenna (Alexandra Roach - No Offence TV series, Anna Karenina etc) did not have any doubt. The suicide was investigated by Laz's old friend Detective Seth McGovern (David Fynn - Trolls Band Together, Undateable TV series etc) and his superior DCI Alison Brown (Kate Ashfield - Shaun of the Dead, This Little Life etc).

Things started to get weird for Laz when he met with his father's patients and found out that their cases have been closed years before and he realized that he might be having some supernatural experience.

So what actually happened and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

I got to say that I was interested in watching this because of the premise and the name Harlan Coben, famous for writing various mystery novels that have been adapted into films or series such as Missing You, The Stranger etc. At first I thought that this was also based on one of his novels, but then I realized that it was actually a series that he created together with Danny Brocklehurst (writer of Fool Me Once, creator of Talk To Me series etc). Anyway I was half expecting that this would be the usual mystery solving, pscyhological thriller type. Turned out it was rather different though with a bit of horrifying images and the supernatural element that made this rightly categorized as horror. However, it was not the kind that would really scare/frighten you even if there were few jump scare scenes that managed to give me a shock.

Now the story itself seemed pretty straight forward at first, but as it progressed and I kept on thinking of the mystery and what actually happened, I felt that it was more complicated. To my surprise, I was unable to deduce most of the things right. The twists were pretty amazing with the ultimate one in the final episode gave me quite a shock, although that last scene was rather predictable especially if you have seen many similar kind of psychological thriller. Btw, the series was categorized as mini series, so even if it looked to be having a cliffhanger ending, I think it was purposely done to leave audience imagine the conclusion. So it was a bit of an open end.

I said above that it has only 6 episodes which was pretty standard. They only had duration between 47-57 minutes which was one of the reason for quick binge. It has a quite large ensemble cast which was understandable with some patients of Dr. Lazarus shown, plus the people from Laz's past. Some of the notable ones here were Eloise Little (Theodosia TV series etc) as Laz's twin sister Sutton, Edward Hogg (White Lightnin' etc) as Sam Olsen the suspect from the old case, Karla Crome (Carnival Row TV series etc) as Laz former high school girlfriend Bella, Curtis Tennant as her son Aidan, Roisin Gallagher (The Dry TV series etc) as another psychiatrist Laura and several others. Of the many characters in this series, my favorite one was Seth who provided some light moments in this dark and gloomy setting. 

What I don't really get was the negative reviews by critics and some audience. I mean it's not perfect or instant classic, but the multiple surprising twists were enough to satisfy me. The mysteris were interesting, plus there were few scary part as well. If there is anything that I did not particularly like was how some time the lead character Laz was too emotional and hot headed which was a bit uncharacteristic for a supposedly renowned psychiatrist, but it could be attributed to his tragic past. In any case, this was pretty enjoyable for me. So if you are looking for another Harlan Coben's mystery series, you can certainly give this a try. It might not be the best one available, but it was still quite entertaining.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars