DAC Episode 366: Flatliners (1990)

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schrodinger’s live dog/dead lion

In recent years, the output of ‘90s-era Joel Schumacher has come in for reappraisal. His commitment to a maximalist aesthetic and gonzo production design now looks like auterist camp in comparison to the washed-out frames of digital filmmaking.

Here at the offices of Destroy All Culture, it is our sincerest hope that Flatliners, Schumacher’s gothbrat opera of transgression and redemption, never gets slated for reexamination. Flatliners is an immensely silly movie that features some of the most unintended comedy sequences of all time, including several scenes of Kiefer Sutherland get beaten up by a child.

Here is a partial list of things that Flatliners wants to scare you with:

  • children

  • women

  • children singing nursery rhymes

  • children with hockey sticks (okay, that one’s legit)

  • women delivering pickup lines

  • weird trees

  • blue lights

  • oversized American flags

And more! Listen below for an in-depth discussion of the movie, or find it on your podthingy of choice.