On October 22, 2025, Prime Video unveiled all six episodes of Lazarus, the latest TV show from novelist and storyteller Harlan Coben. The eerie supernatural horror and psychological mystery thriller stars Sam Claflin as Joel Lazarus, a forensic psychologist who returns to his hometown after the death of his infamous father, Dr. Jonathan Lazarus (Bill Nighy). Haunted by the ghostly visions of his father, Laz begins investigating a slew of paranormal phenomena that have gone unsolved for years.
Although Coben’s latest is an original story and not a Biblical retelling of the Lazarus mythology, given the name, it’s impossible to divorce the two. It’s also hard not to think of Joel Schumacher’s underrated sci-fi horror film Flatliners, which explores themes of playing God, resurrecting the deceased, and facing severe consequences when the past comes back to haunt the protagonists when they get too close to the other side.
Harlan Coben’s Original Premise for ‘Lazarus’
Co-created by Harlan Coben and Daniel Brocklehurst, Lazarus is a six-part British miniseries for Prime Video based on an original idea. While most of Coben’s TV adaptations stem from his novels, Brocklehurst claims that Lazarus came about when:
“He’d [Coben] been past this old building and thought about the ghosts in the walls of a psychologist’s office and the stories that they know. So, he jotted it down. I think it was probably only two or three pages.”
From that fundamental premise, the plot begins to expand. One of the first Coben stories to have supernatural elements, Lazarus centers on Joel Lazarus, aka Laz, as he returns to his hometown following his father’s apparent suicide. Laz’s father, the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Lazarus, appears to Laz as unsettling hallucinations that try to communicate with him and help him make sense of several criminal cold cases.
In addition to his father, Laz begins seeing the spirits of cold case victims, which hit far too close to home when he discovers information about his sister’s death 25 years prior. As Laz begins to explore the meaning of death, the possibilities of the afterlife, and what happens in the purgatorial limbo between the living and the dead, the series aligns with the thrilling psychology of Joel Schumacher’s star-studded sci-fi horror film Flatliners.
How ‘Flatliners’ Compares to ‘Lazarus’
One of the late Joel Schumacher’s most overlooked movies, Flatliners is also a psychological supernatural thriller set in the medical field that explores death and resurrection. The story follows a group of young medical students who try a radical experiment to experience death firsthand. Led by Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland), his fellow med students include Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts), David Lobraccio (Kevin Bacon), Joe Hurley (William Baldwin), and Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt).
When Nelson convinces the others to help him understand what lies beneath the other side of the living realm, they use their medical expertise to “flatline” Nelson for one minute. While clinically deceased for 60 seconds, Nelson’s past comes back to haunt him as he witnesses a little boy whom he had badly bullied as a child. Shaken to the core, Nelson keeps his visions a secret and encourages the others to try the experiment.
Each time one of the students “dies,” they must confront a horrific incident they have tried to forget. For instance, on Halloween, David flatlines and sees visions of Winnie, a girl he harassed in grade school. Meanwhile, Joe relives an abusive sex scandal that haunts his psychological state. Much like in Lazarus, reality begins to blur with the increased hallucinations, forcing the main characters to confront their past. The longer they flatline (up to nine minutes by the end), the more they must reconcile their darkest secrets and grapple with their most painful moments.
By experiencing death up close, the students realize they have the power to atone for their past sins to better their future. Yet, they abuse their power just as they abused victims in the past, with the sense of playing god pulling them deeper into a supernatural hold that becomes harder to shake.
Although Lazarus is explored through the lens of psychiatry rather than medicine, the overarching themes in Flatliners are quite similar. Beyond medicine being a conduit to death in each, the ghostly visions that Laz experiences of his father are meant to help him heal from his trauma and finally give him closure over his father’s recent suicide and his sister’s long-unsolved death.
Why ‘Flatliners’ Remains Underrated 35 Years Later
Despite drawing middling reviews at release, critics and audiences have come to appreciate Flatliners. With a 50% Rotten Tomatoes rating and 55 Metascore, even the critics who praised the cast, visual effects, and moody atmosphere were unimpressed with the romantic angle shoehorned into the story. Yet, in retrospect, especially in comparison to the inferior and unnecessary 2017 “requel,” Flatliners shows Schumacher in complete control of his horror movie craft three years after making the iconic ’80s vampire movie The Lost Boys.
Indeed, the eerily unnerving atmosphere Schumacher creates is hard to beat. Between the cold visual aesthetic and the sterile medical environment, coupled with the nocturnal graveyard scenes, gloomy Gothic architecture, festive Halloween decorations, and ethereal representations of purgatory, Schumacher delivers a literal and figurative breath-taker and heart-stopper that has only gotten better over time. Combined with Oscar-nominated sound effects editing and the exquisite cinematography of Jan de Bont (Die Hard), the film’s moody atmosphere is genuinely captivating.
Overcoming its average critical marks, Flatliners earned a 1991 Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film of the year. Julia Roberts also scored a Saturn Award nod for Best Supporting Actress. One staunch defender of the film was Roger Ebert, who bestowed the film with a 3/4-star rating, writing:
“The audacity of this experiment (flatlining) is terrifying and intriguing, and let’s face it: It’s a great idea for a movie. Flatliners is an original, intelligent thriller, well-directed by Joel Schumacher.”
Regardless of how much Harlan Coben insists that Lazarus has nothing to do with the Biblical tale, it’s clear that it shares plenty in common with Flatliners as a supernatural psychological thriller that explores the ramifications of playing god. Flatliners‘ tagline, “Some lines shouldn’t be crossed,” applies equally to Lazarus. Flatliners is available to stream on Fubo & Xumo. Lazarus is streaming on Prime Video.
- Release Date
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August 10, 1990
- Runtime
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115 Minutes
- Writers
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Peter Filardi