Flatliners

Recently, my interest in horror movies peaked, and a couple friends and I chose to see the recent remake of Flatliners. For months, I’ve been seeing ads for this upcoming movie, so I figured I would see what all the fuss is about. The plot of the movie is much like its former adaptation, which was created in 1990.

It follows 5 medical students who are curious about life after death. They conduct experiments where they stop their heart (killing themselves is a bit grim) in order to track brain activity when they die. The storyline intrigued me, for I had never seen something like this. But my expectations were pretty low because I heard multiple bad reviews about the movie and it only scored a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, stating, “Flatliners falls flat as a horror movie and fails to improve upon its source material, rendering this reboot dead on arrival.” Compared to the 1990 version, which scored a 49%, the prospects of me actually enjoying this movie seemed nearly impossible. Nevertheless, I decided to judge it for myself and go see it.

After seeing the movie, I found myself delightfully surprised at how interesting I found it. Flatliners was packed with enough horror to keep watchers at the edge of their seats but still wanting more. The stars of the movie Ellen Page, James Norton, Nina Dobrev, Diego Luna, and Kiersey Clemons, all showed an amazing performance.The only thing I would really critique would be the ending. The movie felt unresolved, and the way it was wrapped up made all the work and hardships that the characters went through seem pointless. But as bad as the ending may have been, the rest of the movie made up for it. It was equal parts interesting, entertaining, and packed with horror, making it an almost perfect movie.