WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
I’ve talked previously about not messing with the afterlife when I covered the Ouija films but actually putting yourself in a position to visit the other side is a complete different extreme to a simple board carved with letters. Today we follow two groups of med students on their intrepid adventures across the void – one taking place in 1999, the other in 2017 (you would have thought they would have learnt from the first team?) I give you – Flatliners.
Team Dynamic
When it comes to remakes I’m sure you have all realised by now that this is something I like to take quite a close look at. In the original Flatliners film, our team is made up of four men and just the one woman whereas in the remake – it is the women that hold the majority equalling out as 3:2. Obviously I know this isn’t an important fact for most people but it actually opens the remake up for two scenes that I think are completely unnecessary.
Yes there is a romance that develops in the original but it isn’t one of those in-your-face attractions, and honestly it doesn’t go the way I would have expected, but in the remake they decided to throw in quite a lewd sex scene between Jamie and Sophia – to the point that her mother can actually hear them I might add – along with a budding romance between Marlo and Ray (who also end up having sex, they’re just less obvious with this one…which isn’t hard). For me, this is all a little out of place – especially as they should be focusing on what they’ve brought back through with them.
Prime Objective
This is something that seems to be quite quickly forgotten in the 2017 version of Flatliners. Courtney, our lead character, starts off being intent on understanding what we see when we die and the functions of the brain in the process. This is similar to Nelson’s motivations in the original film, however unlike the original group of plucky med students, Courtney and her group seem to get distracted from their main purpose of flatlining and instead begin to enjoy the adrenalin rush they get from it.
In both films, all except one member of the group choose to flatline. In the original film, they decide to do this so that they can have their own experience of the afterlife – ‘betting’ on who can go under for longer. However, in the remake it is Courtney’s increased cognition that influences everyone but Ray to flatline.
Moral of the Story
In both versions of the film, our protagonists bring something malevolent back with them from the other side (I guess it wouldn’t be much of a remake if something different happened). However, they seem to make completely different points, or at least the 2017 version does not seem to make the point as well as the original does.
They refer to what comes back with them as their ‘sins’ but a better way of putting is an evil incarnation of their personal guilt – but in my opinion, in the remake not everyone atones for their mistakes, unlike the original. Both Sophia and Jamie seek forgiveness from those that they have wronged, like Dave in the 1990 version, and they seem to both be forgiven but in a strange way – Jamie is almost rewarded with the fact that the woman he got pregnant, never had the abortion he was supposed to attend. It even comes across like Courtney takes the easy way out. Yes, she is pushed from her fire escape by the manifestation of her dead sister. In my opinion, this seems to have an implication of suicide and that Courtney can no longer handle her guilt. Especially as she records a video for her friends before it happens – a little bit like a suicide note. At least Marlo makes the same sacrifice as Nelson does in the original when they – in the simplest terms – kill themselves to seek forgiveness from the person they accidentally killed.
Cheesy Ending
Part of me thinks the director deliberately chose to kill off one of the characters (whether it was originally Courtney’s who knows) in order to have the cheesy conclusion of Marlo being told to forgive herself by an ethereal spirit before she is successfully resuscitated. What was so wrong with the way the original ended? Even though everyone else has decided to stop because Nelson had been dead for too long, Dave does whatever he can to bring his friend back to life – and succeeds!
In Conclusion
The concept of Flatliners is very clever in my opinion and may be as a stand-alone film (in a universe where the original was never made of course) the 2017 version would be quite a good film. Even more so if they laid off the ‘jump scares’ a little, it’s a good device in a horror film but not when it’s overused. So, for me the original wins out (which is responded to with a chorus of ‘Here we go again’ from the audience).
