| Joe Hurley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Joe Hurley | |
| Aliases: | Doctor Joe Hurley |
| Notability: | Main character |
| Type: | Physician |
| Gender: | Male |
| Status: | Alive |
| Introduction: | Flatliners (1990) |
| Actor: | William Baldwin |
Joe Hurley is a fictional medical student and one of the main characters from the 1990 sci-fi/horror film Flatliners. He was played by actor William Baldwin.
Biography[]
Joe Hurley was a young male medical student who attended college somewhere in the American midwest in the early 1990s. He was colleagues with other bright and ambitious future doctors Nelson Wright, Rachel Mannus, David Labraccio and Randy Steckle.
Outside of his academic achievements, Joe was also known for his sexual proclivities, which occasionally ran into the realm of "unconventional". He was engaged to a woman named Anne, who was largely unaware of Joe's sexual history, which included secretly videotaping his nocturnal escapades without his partner's knowledge.
At the behest of Nelson Wright, Joe and the others engaged in a controversial and highly unethical experiment involving near death experiences. They each in turn submitted themselves to the experiment whereupon they would flatline for up to two minutes before being resuscitated by their colleagues. Nelson, David, Rachel and Joe all underwent the process, though Randy refused to partake. After resuscitation, each of them began experiencing intense hallucinations that related to some dark secret from their past. In Joe's case, he was haunted by the images of all of the women he had bedded.
The only way to alleviate these near death symptoms was to somehow make restitution for past misdeeds. In Joe's case however, restitution came in the form of his fiancée, Anne, discovering the truth about his collection of sex tapes. After which, she left him, but this at least caused the hallucinations to stop. [1]
Notes & Trivia[]
- The character of Joe Hurley was created by director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Peter Filardi.
- Doctor Joe Hurley redirects to this page.
- Joe is the second of four people to undergo the near death experience experiment after Nelson Wright, but before Dave Labraccio.
- Playing the part of Joe Hurley is actor William Baldwin's third feature film role. It is his first work in both the science fiction and horror genres.