Premiere release of 1990 James Newton Howard score.

Intrada announces the premiere release of James Newton Howard’s 1990 score to Columbia Pictures’ Flatliners. It’s a score that has deserved a release for the past 35 years and one of the last major Howard scores to have never been released in any format. It’s a massive work, composed for large orchestra and chorus. Befitting the hyperreal style of the film, the composer tackles big ideas like spirituality and religion head on, with a score as grand as the themes suggest. As Howard recalls, “Some memories I have were having a 90-piece orchestra for the first time to do whatever I wanted and bringing in all kinds of different electronics and sampled stuff, including a specific ‘monkey chant’ from Bali. The main idea for me was trying to musically express redemption—a theme that blooms into its big version heard in ‘Flatliners End Titles.'” It was also Howard’s first time writing for large choir.

This Flatliners release features nearly 80 minutes of music (including 18 minutes of demos and alternates) and arrives just in time for the film’s 35th anniversary. The album was produced by Stéphane Humez and mastered by Maxime Marion with liner notes by Kaya Savas.

The film is a psychological sci-fi thriller directed by Joel Schumacher and follows a group of ambitious medical students—played by Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt—who conduct a dangerous experiment to explore what happens after death. They deliberately stop each other’s hearts for short periods of time, experiencing near-death visions before being revived. However, their experiments soon spiral out of control as they begin to face terrifying manifestations of their past sins, blurring the line between life, death and guilt.

Label: Intrada Special Collection Volume ISC 526

Film Date: 1990 / Album Date: 2025

Time: 79:31 / Tracks: 39