KNOCK ’EM DEAD
Medical emergencies are no joke in Niels Arden Oplev’s Flatliners follow-up
We might need to have a disclaimer saying, ‘Don’t do this at home!’
“We might need a disclaimer saying, ‘Don’t do this at home!’” jokes director Niels Arden Oplev, chatting to Red Alert about his new film Flatliners. “Basically, you could look at this film and you could go kill somebody the way the characters do it.” That may not be the most responsible way to sell his slick-looking supernatural thriller, but the premise is certainly an adrenaline-spiker: a group of medical students experiment with a near-death experience as a way of investigating the existence of the afterlife.
If that plot – and title – sounds familiar, it’s probably because Flatliners is actually a sequel to Joel Schumacher’s same-titled 1990 scare flick starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon. That film turned a healthy profit at the box office and tapped into similar murky psychological territory as Altered States, but it’s now a little-known genre curio mostly remembered by cult fans.
That lack of household familiarity was part of what attracted Oplev, who previously directed the 2009 Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, to Ben Ripley’s script. “I thought, ‘Yeah it’s a cult classic but it’s not a masterpiece,’” he admits of Schumacher’s original. “I thought there definitely was [the opportunity to make] a new, really exciting, really entertaining version of this film that could connect with a new generation.”
His version is a part-sequel, part-reboot in which student Courtney (Ellen Page) masterminds a plan to stop her heart for short bursts in order to see what lies beyond the veil. “Courtney is, on the surface, definitely chasing the scientific experimentation,” Oplev says, “and then, of course, I don’t want to do a spoiler, but there are other motives driving her that are revealed. She’s the instigator, the one who takes the initiative.” Lending her a defibrillator are fellow med students Marlo (Nina Dobrev), Jamie (James Norton), Ray (Diego Luna) and Sophia (Kiersey Clemons), all of whom get involved for different, perhaps sinister, reasons.
Given the outrageous concept at the film’s heart, Oplev knew he needed a specific type of actress who could pull off the medical babble while also bringing intelligence and heart to Flatliners. Luckily, he found that in a certain
The new film tries to be a new, scary, fun interpretation of a great plot
Inception star. “Ellen has this remarkable thing… When you put a camera on her, everything is interesting,” he marvels of Page. “She just has this depth and this quality where you never get tired of seeing her on screen. She’s the one who has this outrageous idea of getting James and Kiersey’s characters to stop her heart, and you totally believe it! She has such emotional depth, it just gives the film an elegance, as does Diego; he’s such a hero in the film.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be Flatliners without the man who originated the crazy idea back in the ’90s. In Oplev’s film, we’re reunited with Nelson (Kiefer Sutherland), who may or may not be an ally to our fresh, young whitecoats. “Well, he’s a middle-aged man now, he’s definitely a bit marked by life, but he’s certainly still capable of being a tough, unforgiving professor,” Oplev says, clearly choosing his words carefully so as not to give too much away. “I think it’s very fun, those moments with Kiefer’s cameo in this film. He enjoys scaring the shit out of the young students.”
So is Nelson still chasing the world of the dead? “I would say that’s a question one would have to ask Nelson!” Oplev teases. “That’s a mystery around him, so I can’t answer that!” And Nelson won’t be the only familiar element in Oplev’s film, with the director revealing: “There’s a bit of a homage to the old film in the very end of this film, in the violent climax, but this is very different to that ’80s goth kind of world that Schumacher created. I don’t think the film tries to be the old film in any way; it tries to be a new, scary, fun interpretation of a great plot.”
Having been shot over 48 days in Toronto, Flatliners is in post-production when Oplev chats to Red Alert. He has just four weeks to finish the editing and all-important special effects, with the latter pivotal in the creation of the dead world our characters discover.
“It’s kind of like it has a bit of a dreamlike/ nightmarish character to it,” he says. “First when they start to flatline, it’s really trippy, it’s like a great trip, like a crazy amusement park ride, and then of course they open a door to the wrong place, you could say, and then it turns toward the more nightmarish element. That’s scary in a very entertaining way, I would say!” Who needs responsible?