147.
Flatliners
5.5/10
Another horror and another re-make of the film with the same title from 1990. This one stars Ellen Page, Diego Luna, who recently stared in Rogue One and the only link it has to it's original, is that Kiefer Sutherland plays a role once again, but a different character compared to the one that the audience would remember him playing. The trailer pretty much gives us what we need to know. These medical students are killing themselves for a short period of time, to discover what the afterlife is like and then being revived. Could this movie bring the old version back to life or leave this plot dead and buried?
The movie begins with Page's character, Courtney, driving with her little sister in the passenger seat, until a hidden bend in the road leads to a car crash, he driving into the river and her sister not making it back to the surface. Fast Forward a few years and Courtney is now a medical student, obsessing about the afterlife and maybe the thought of seeing her sister once again. In an unused basement, she lures her best friend and another fellow student down, telling them of her plan and the need for their help. Things don't go well and another part of the group is called in to help revive her, before another female walks in, completing our main gang for this movie. We have the leader in Courtney, the cocky guy in Jamie, Sophia is Courtney's best friend and is a cautious worrier, Ray is one of the most intelligent students, along with Marlo, who both have a sort of sexual tension as well as competitive streak towards each other. After the experiment and Courtney has been taken home, the gang watch her recordings on a laptop, showing each part of the brain, which reacts during her death. Courtney herself, recalls memories of when she was younger, talents that she had long forgotten and increased intelligence. Jamie becomes envious and wants to go next. During his experience, we see him riding a motorbike, with his ex-girlfriend on the back, before the scene starts to turn dark and we zoom in on a house. The next to go are Marlo and Sophia, both increasing their minutes that they remain dead and both experience similar, positive results as Courtney. The first two to go though, are the first to experience the bad sides of the experiment. Both start seeing visions of their past, but decide to keep it a secret.
Soon, the movie turns into some decent horror scenes as everyone starts to be hunted down by their visions. Courtney by her sister, because it was her fault for the death for using her phone while driving. Jamie is tracked by his ex-girlfriend's and her baby, who he begged to get an abortion. Marlo is hunted by a man that she killed by accident when mixing up his medication and Sophia by a girl whose life she ruined in school by leaking some pictures of her. Ray, the only one who hasn't flatlined, doesn't believe the others and as everything gets more intense, Courtney records a video, apologising, before admitting that her interest in the experiments was to see her sister again, not scientific discovery. She is later chased by her vision and killed as she falls from the high story of her apartment. Didn't see that one coming. Marlo is suffocated in her car by her vision as Jamie is stabbed in the hand, but these two survive their encounters. Marlo heads to the morgue to find Courtney's phone after it has been ringing them one by one. She has another vision in there, before making it back to the gang for them all to learn of how their friend died. They come clean with each other about their past mistakes and look to make amends after realising that the visions are clearly past sins and not paranormal. After the group take action, things start to improve, but Marlo doesn't want to sort it out and instead tries to flatline again, in hope of killing herself instead but is saved by the team. In the end, she confesses to the Dean of the University and the gang are last seen in the pub, celebrating their friendship and enjoying a piano piece that is being played by a man. This song is the same that Courtney played once she remembered how to play the piano after 12 years.
What ever happened to original ideas? I haven't seen the original, but I'm not sure it was enough of a hit to warrant being re-made into a movie 17 years later. The storyline was clever and interesting enough, but it was never going to be massive, cliff hanger. The trailer pretty much used all of the jump scares that the film conveyed, so everyone watching, if they had a decent memory, would pretty much know what was coming. The cast were ok, but forgettable and there wasn't too much use of special effects when the visions were mainly made up of people with make-up. The camera work, such as cutting between real life and the hallucinations did work really well though. It's not one that I'll be rushing back to see and a far cry away from the other horrors that will be out at this time of year.
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