R F Brown

When I saw in Flatliners how easy it is to kill yourself and live to tell about it, I figured there must be medical students, like in the movie, who try this kind of thing all the time.  After all, doctors have a God complex.  I know this because my boyfriend is a doctor, although he told me with omniscient certainty that nobody, especially a med student, is dumb enough to stop their heart from beating for 3 minutes like they do in the Flatliners.  Disbeliever that I am, I Googled “copycats Flatliners” and in fact found nothing.  So, here is a story with a unique idea about proving there is life after death and what do these daring experimenters find?   When you die you spend eternity being chased by vengeful visions of kids you used to be mean to on the playground.  Guilt after life?  Why bother dieing?  Lucky for the characters here that they all get a second chance to track down the old objects of their childhood ridicule and finally atone.  I’m pretty sure I once saw a Highway To Heaven episode that went the same way.  There is a great cast here of young actors who all became better known.  And the neo-gothic sets and locations help create an eerie and isolating reality.  Yeah, Flatliners starts out well as an edgy movie.  Too bad it winds up so hokey.