‘Flatliners” is a special kind of bad.
The original 1990 film was not good to begin with, barely registering a blip on the EKG of memorability. It’s mind-boggling that a bunch of Hollywood executives decided to undertake this awful remake of yet another movie that never needed to be remade.
The concept, however, had a bit of a pulse that it shares with the modern iteration: Med students procedurally kill each other on operating tables to get glimpses into what lies beyond death, yielding initially pleasant experiences that turn into something terrifying. (Not really — the scares for both films are very lame.) While the original bombed in the horror department, it didn’t completely fail tonally — at least, it wasn’t as boring as watching decomposition set in.
2017’s “Flatliners” is some sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a film, but not even a bolt of lightning could bring this thing to life. A bunch of different producers and executives probably threw out an idea each, stitched them together into something that is an hour and a half of medical drama, 10 minutes of some of the most lifeless (pun intended) jump scares to ever grace the screen, and all around incredibly dull. That is not an exaggeration; the phantoms in this are literally just actors with gray face paint and some eyeliner who walk out of a corner very casually to surprise the actor rather than the audience.
That cliché horror movie scene, when they are all sitting around a table trying to figure out what the apparitions are, comes down to a hilariously awful line: “Is it something … demonic?” — which apparently tries to lump the movie in with the likes of “Paranormal Activity” or “The Conjuring.” At least the movie provides that single unintentional laugh.
The concept is introduced quickly, the characters are revealed as pretty typical tropes. But what is so unbelievable is the amount of time dawdling through each character going through his/her individual near death experience. An hour and 10 minutes in, these characters are still messing around with their whole “flatlining” experiment. With no real sign of a significant catalyst in sight, there isn’t even a three-act structure; the characters just alternate spouting med student jargon and killing and reviving each other several times over. It’s like having to watch a couple of stoners pass a bong back and forth for two hours, with none of the involvement but all of the mental impairment.
How do you make such an interesting concept so incredibly boring? Aside from the last 20 or 30 minutes of this almost two-hour film, relatively nothing happens aside from the students experimenting on each other, then going to celebrate when they experience the enlightenment of dying. One of these “Hey guys, let’s party!” moments involves two of the characters busting down an apartment wall, spraying each other with whipped cream and making out before going outside to play in a hailstorm.
The actors are barely sufficient, but maybe the only sign of life this movie has. Ellen Page’s character is the most interesting, but this only means her character is the least boring. But (spoiler alert — but you know you don’t care at this point) she is killed off permanently a bit past the halfway point, leaving no real focus to a central character thereafter.
Nina Dobrev and James Norton could have entire careers as top-tier B-grade horror movie actors given how well they embrace their horribly overused character tropes, while Diego Luna simply deserves better than this after his work on “Rogue One.” Kiersey Clemons barely avoids being obnoxiously bad.
There’s not really anything else to say. Perhaps this writer is just out of brain cells after “Flatliners,” a movie that has about as much life and personality as a cadaver, and it stinks like one too.
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“Flatliners” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
