About the Film: Flatliners (1990)
When the group of four doctors flat-line and come back to life, they also bring the dead with them. Nelson is the first to experiment with death, and he did not tell anyone about the repercussions that came after, which led to David, Rachel, and Joe trying the experiment out as well. Joe is haunted by his present, taking advantage of women and secretly recording their sexual intercourse, while Nelson, Rachel, and David are haunted by their childhood experiences. Their uncanny experience with death goes back to Freud because what they find uncanny is something that they are familiar with, which is the events that took place when they were kids. The only thing that is new and strange to them is death, because it was their first time dying.
Nelson was a bully when he was a kid and always picked on a kid that went by Billy Mahoney. One day Billy climbed up a tree to escape Nelson, but Nelson threw a rock at Billy, and Billy feel out of the tree and died. Nelson had to deal with the burden of killing someone as a child, and tried his best to repress that memory. Rachel's dad was in the military, and he came home to spend time with his family. One day Rachel opens the bathroom door and discovers her dad using heroin. Rachel's mom yelled at her, and her dad walked outside and committed suicide in his truck. Rachel always blamed herself for the reasoning why her dad killed himself, and she could never get over. David was also a bully when he was younger. He used to make fun at a black girl named Winnie, and always called her ugly. David gets haunted by the memory of him being so cruel to her.
All of their uncanny experiences comes form the things they have known almost their whole lives. They all try their best to repress their one traumatic experience as mush as they can, but death brings it back full force. The film confirms Freud's views about the uncanny, because the uncanny is something that they know, and they can't make it go away because it's staring right in front of their faces.