...you could go back...

This movie is very moving and one of my favorites when delving into the supernatural...and the other side. I strongly suggest you see this if you have not, it makes "the butterfly effect" and others of the genre look pretty light. Great Cast as well!

One of the most intriguing and well-constructed supernatural thrillers of the 1990s. A group of brilliant medical students decide to literally play with life and death. They put themselves in suspended animation, electronically inducing a near-deathlike state and then pulling out of it at the last possible moment.

Things get hairy when one of the students (Kiefer Sutherland) becomes obsessed with the notion of really dying, the better to experience the Afterlife before being revived-if he can be revived. In her first dramatic starring role (playing a sensitive young lady on a misguided guilt trip), Julia Roberts is very, very good-completely bereft of movie-star mannerisms. Audiences flocked to see Flatliners back in 1990 due to the highly publicized off-screen romance between Roberts and Sutherland. Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin are in the picture as well.

This is one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen. I would like to give it five stars but I think the ending could have been a little better. other than that I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes creepy movies

I have never heard of Flatliners until about a month ago, when HBO was airing it just about every night. Last night, I was able to catch the movie, and let me tell you that it was the best move I have ever made. This movie was unbelievable, but it scared me to the bone like you wouldn't believe.

Five med students: Nelson Wright (played by Kiefer Sutherland), Rachel Mannus (played by Julia Roberts), Joe Hurley (played by William Baldwin), David Labraccio (played by Kevin Bacon), and Randy Steckle (played by Oliver Platt) are five best friends, who want to experience what it feels like to be temporarily dead. One by one, each of the five friends are put under the gas until they are dead. Nelson is the first to go through with the experimental experience. As he is temporarily in the afterlife, he sees something he has kept hidden secret for the past seventeen years: he and three other guys accidentally killed an innocent kid named Billy Mahoney, an innocent little kid that Nelson used to pick on. Nelson is successfully brought back to life. Joe is the next one to go under. As he experiences the afterlife, he begins to see all of the women he has slept with and then dumped. The worse part of that is: with each girl he dated, he videotaped while he had sex with them, where he is then brought back to life successfully. David is an atheist, who is more than just a little skeptical about this experience. Wanting to prove Joe and Nelson wrong, David ends up being the next one to go through the experience, where he sees a little girl named Winnie Hicks, an innocent little girl that he and some friends used to harass. They successfully bring David back to life. Rachel is aching to try the experiment. She proves that she can be under for five minutes, longer than Joe, Nelson, and David. So, she goes under. What she sees is the horrible suicide of her father, and she is successfully brought back to life. Randy decides not to go through with the experiment.

As the days go on, the other four begin seeing horrifying things. Everywhere Joe walks, he sees the women he had videotaped, whilst they had sex. Everywhere Dave goes, he sees the image of Winnie Hicks. Everywhere Rachel goes, she sees the image of her father's corpse. Everywhere Nelson goes, he begins seeing poor little Billy. But when he sees Billy, Billy bashes him in the face with something, scarring Nelson's face all over. These images are not just images, but their past sins, the people, whom they have severely wronged. The only way to stop these sins from appearing is to reconcile. David decides to track down Winnie Hicks and apologize with all his heart. He does so and Winnie more than warmly accepts. Joe settles his homemade porno escapade after his fiancé leaves him; not because he cheated on her, but because he slept with the other women and dropped them off like they were pieces of sh*t. Rachel has reconciled by letting go of the guilt she felt over her father. Nelson cannot reconcile with his sin, for he feels more than responsible for the death of Billy Mahoney. Nelson feels that he deserves to die and never return. He runs back to the lab and puts himself under, where he has another vision of him and friends picking on Billy, but this time, the vision is reversed, showing Billy and Nelson's friends picking on Nelson. As Billy throws the last rock, in which it knocks Billy out of a tree, as Nelson did Billy, Nelson finds himself looking as he does now, at the age of 26. He lands on the ground and seems to be dead. Is it possible that Nelson might night return to the living or will he remain in the afterlife?

I was completely horrified by this movie. It made me not want to ever pick on innocent little children. It made me not want to have sex with women while secretly videotaping them. It made not want to ever try this experience...ever. But this is a movie that everybody should have enjoyed. Kiefer Sutherland, to me, is the best part of this movie. I have always been a fan of Kiefer Sutherland, but after seeing this film, I gained a whole new level of respect for this more than talented actor. This is a film that you better jump on if you haven't already. So, take my advice and remember...there is no turning back.

...and for its' "age" (1990) it looks as if it was made in 2004. The picture is mostly dark and shaded, and the atmosphere of "Flatliners" is rather similiar to "Dark City" (Alex Proyas) -it's never spooky though as in the sence of creepy, but at the same time it is rather scary what these young medical students start experimenting on.

"Flatliners" in its' "paranormality" functions very well, the story is perhaps a bit predictable ("make up for the sins of your past, and the ghosts will go away")-but the movie is just as fascinating, and the fact that the cast could not have been better helps this ship floating from start to end (Sutherland, Roberts, Baldwin -and of course Bacon).

Yes, the atmosphere of "Flatliners" is great! Highly recommended!

This movie is great from start to finish about a group of med students that get together and literally kill each other by stopping their hearts and then revive themselves. They then research what happens from the "near death" experiences. As each one goes through the experience, they become haunted by their deepest fears that seem to materialize as reality.

The cast is first rate and Oliver Platt is hilarious in one of the best roles of his career. I am not a big Keifer Sutherland fan but even he does an excellent job. This is a movie that I can watch over and over!