FLATLINERS

released oUT NoW! 15 | 110 minutes Director Niels arden oplev Cast ellen Page, diego luna, Nina dobrev, James Norton

Don’t be fooled by the fact that Kiefer Sutherland’s in this – it’s definitely a remake of Joel Schumacher’s Flatliners, not a sequel. So when medical student Courtney (Ellen Page) nags her classmates to stop her heart while scanning her brain so that she can prove there’s life after death, Sutherland’s character doesn’t burst in to stop them by explaining why it’s a terrible idea. Nope, they have to work through an exhaustive list of horror clichés to figure that out.

Derivative, boring and almost painfully stupid, it’s hard to find anything to recommend. Scrubbing the original’s religious undertones should’ve opened up space to explore what death means to people who don’t believe in anything beyond, but instead director Niels Arden Oplev shoves in some superficial platitudes about owning up to your mistakes and being nice to people and hopes that’ll pass as insightful.

It doesn’t. As a morality tale, this is childishly basic; as a horror movie, it’s a disaster, its scares dulled by over-familiarity and dodgy editing. What does that leave? As a remake, it only functions to make the 1990 version look better. Just as Courtney could’ve saved herself some heartache by clueing Sutherland’s crotchety old professor into her flatlining plans, you can save yourself wasting two hours by watching the original. Sarah Dobbs