5 Star

Shock To Stop – Shock For Life.

Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys, Falling Down, A Time to Kill) the director that brought our favourite films of the nineteen-eighties, bursts into the nineteen-nineties with Flatliners with all the young stars that he has helped to stardom. His career carries on into the twenty-first century with the likes of tense films like Phone Booth. Flatliners, goes where most people do not want to go, the other side of life. Death.

Medical student Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland, The Lost Boys,
1988, 24) watches the sunrise and proclaims that it is a “Good day to die”. While fellow medical student, David Labraccio (Kevin Bacon, Footloose, Tremors, Super, Patriots Day) is making decisions that could halt his career before it starts. Meanwhile, David’s friend Dr. Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts, Larry Crowne, August: Osage County, Erin Brockovich) is researching her favourite obsession the afterlife, with people who have had near death out of body experiences. Uptight student Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt, The Three Musketeers, Lake Placid) wants nothing to do with Nelson’s plans for after tuition, while oversexed Joe Hurley (William Baldwin, Backdraft, The Squid and the Whale) likes any opportunity to use his video camera.

I have no interest in seeing you kill yourself… I think you do.

Philosophy failed. Religion failed. Now it’s up to the physical sciences.

In a disused church, Nelson and his friends meet up for Nelson’s experiment, to see what lies beyond death For this he needs his friends to document the experiment and to bring him, most importantly, back to life. Nelson starts the process as the others get their heads around what Nelson is about to do. Nelson flatlines for one full minute before they start the process of bringing him back from death. Inside the dead Nelson, he sees a flash from his past where he was bullying the young Billy Mahoney (Joshua Rudoy, Harry and the Hendersons). But that is not what he tells his friends, ‘there is something out there.’

I did not come to medical school to murder my classmates, no matter how deranged they might be.

All of Nelson’s friends are now eager to experience the afterlife, each one tries to out bid the others with how long they want to be dead for. As Joe, David and Rachel all see their own version of what is waiting for them on the other side, they find it isn’t all happy afterlife. What do they have to do to appease the spirits that they encounter?

Everything matters, everything we do matters.

Flatliners bursts back to life with this great 4K Blu-ray release, if you are a fan of any of the stars of this classic 1990s film, this release is a must own. Who or what is awaiting you on the other side?

Flatliners 4K Blu-ray is available now.