: (James Newton Howard) A youthful
favorite with an all-star production crew, 1990's
sports an alluringly attractive cast that depicted a group of medical
students who decide to challenge the power of God by suspending
themselves in near-death experiences to see what happens at the doors of
the other side. Supposedly, the experience is reported to be one of
peaceful bliss, but these cocky students manage to turn the affair into
a series of gloomy and suspenseful maneuvers in resuscitation, all set
in a Gothic and shadowy environment that causes the film to walk a fine
line between adventure and horror. Their endeavors unlock events from
their pasts for which they must seek or provide forgiveness, and until
they achieve that necessary goal, they are haunted in real life by
supernatural visions that drive them to seek amends or make additional
flatlining episodes to find peace. The intriguing concept yields a story
with redemption at its heart, but critics weren't as kind to it as
audiences were at the time. Among the edgier films directed by Joel
Schumacher in the early 1990's were
, both scored by his regular collaborator at the time, James
Newton Howard. The director gave Howard the assignment on
with tremendous artistic freedom because of a romantic
comedy of the composer's in the 1980's that had caught his ear. For
Howard, that unlikely turn of events represented his first foray into
fully orchestral film scoring, 1990 proving to be the year of his
ascendance in the industry. He relied heavily on his conductor and
orchestrators to assist him in the symphonic half of this score, and
these connections would become his own regular collaborators for much of
the rest of his career. Howard plays the strategy of the score along the
lines of a religious horror film, alternating between glorious choral
statements of beauty and terrifying barrages of orchestral and
electronic mayhem. The latter strives to capture the contemporary
scientific atmosphere on one hand while playing up the need for
conventional horror stingers for scenes of hallucinations on the
other.
Casual listeners who appreciated the positive message
of
Flatliners in the end will recall the score's moments of
beauty that culminate in the remarkable finale cue that is a documented
highlight in Howard's entire career and a calling card among his early
assignments. It represents the orchestral and choral blend of
magnificence for the work's redemption theme that is tonally lovely in a
grandiose religious fashion, offering the characters' salvation in a
magical thematic realm arguably unparalleled in the composer's lengthy
career until his post-2000 fantasy epics. Howard accesses this side of
the score in the same fashion as in
A Devil's Advocate, with
single notes of magnificent harmony bursting out of otherwise distraught
action. The composer builds slowly to his catharsis, however, the theme
previewed in "Main Title," afforded sensitivity on strings and woodwinds
in "Davey Comforts Rachel," and fully occurring in "Rachel Goes Home"
while hinted throughout a few other cues. The combination of the "Nelson
Lives" and "End Titles" cues provides the idea its utterly gorgeous
choral resonance at the end of an otherwise very challenging score. And
that's the issue with
Flatliners; most of its running time is
occupied by stark synthetic thriller soundscapes more akin to Howard's
methodology of the 1980's, and it's badly dated and grating music. As in
"Nelson Flatlines," the horror element sometimes throws the choir and
orchestral players into a downright unpleasant combination of atonal
choral chanting and heavy percussion that mirrors Danny Elfman's
concurrent
Nightbreed score in many ways. In "The Lab" and
elsewhere, Howard creates a sound remarkably similar to what Trevor
Jones would write for
Hideaway a few years later, with an
electric guitar rhythm propelling a flighty chorus, though in
Flatliners, the guitars eventually wail harshly among other
irritating sound effects and looped rhythmic devices. Some of the
earlier cues offer light drama akin to Hans Zimmer's style at the time,
led by "Drive to Deli." The outright, thrashing shock horror cues in the
middle of the score are challenging to tolerate, though, and they are
surrounded by mundane synthetic soundscapes that provide little interest
or solace.
The sizable orchestra employed for
Flatliners
sometimes joins the work's pounding atmospheres, and the dissonance in
"Billy Attacks in Truck" is even joined by the yelling voice of a child.
Sadly, much of the score is simply uninteresting, the religious element
outside of the redemption theme played up on organ in "Nelson Calls
Rachel" but such tones left largely behind in the remainder. A recurring
percussive rhythm of panic propels cues like "Nelson Running to Lab" and
"Boys Arrive at Lab" with a mixture of synths, drum pads, and live
percussion, and many of the lab-oriented moments are treated to lesser
versions of this mode. Sometimes, it's joined by rambling synth lines in
the bass, as in "Revival Attempts." Howard doesn't dive too deeply into
secondary themes, but Julia Roberts' Rachel character receives a
charming celesta-led diversion in "Rachel Reflects" that returns in
"Rachel's Death" and "Rachel & Dad in Class." (Howard's more
conventionally pleasant theme for the actress in
Pretty Woman the
same year was a major propellant for his career.) In the end, the score
is really only accessible in its five to ten minutes of lovely
statements of the redemption theme with the choir and orchestra, but
that's enough to have made the work something of a collectible through
the years. Selections from both
Flatliners and
Falling
Down occupied a 1997 bootleg that was distributed through soundtrack
specialty outlets and commanded high prices before long, mainly because
of the first score's thematic passages. Poor sound quality with a
distracting level of hiss plagued the score's entire presentation on
that bootleg, however, and the product was really aimed at Howard
completists or dedicated enthusiasts of
Flatliners. In 2025,
Intrada Records pressed a full presentation of the work with a slew of
Howard's demos and an alternate version of the pinnacle "End Titles"
arrangement. While the sound quality is absolutely perfect on this
product, the score still suffers from its harsh dichotomy, the horror
and suspense portions of synthetic 1980's heritage rough to tolerate but
yielding to the stunning orchestral majesty in parts. Even on this
superior product,
Flatliners isn't necessarily recommended as a
whole. But it remains a historically important work for Howard, whose
initial foray into orchestral scoring helped convince him that film
music was where he wanted to point his career from that point forward.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.37
(in 71 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.34
(in 86,543 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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