Pulse (2006)
Directed by Jim Sonzero
Written by Wes Craven
Starring Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Millian, Zach Grenier, Octavia Spencer
Release Date August 11th, 2006
Published August 12th, 2006
After The Grudge and The Ring became major hits Harvey Weinstein the imperial head of Miramax/Dimension films put the film Pulse in turnaround meaning he did not want to make it. Weinstein saw that the film had nothing new to offer and was merely a sad retread of J-horror cliches. When Weinstein and his brother Bob left Miramax for their own company the new owners decided to make the movie.
If only they had listened to Harvey. Pulse is just what Weinstein saw when he pulled the plug on the film, a dull, uninspired horror retread.
Mattie Webber (Kristen Bell) has not seen her boyfriend Josh (Jonathan Tucker) in days. He doesn't answer his phones or respond to email. When she finally finds him at his apartment he is ashen and bruised. He disappears into another room and when Mattie follows him she finds him hanging himself with a phone cord.
Josh's suicide is part of a rash of suicides in the area that are linked to a creepy website that invites viewers to see ghosts. Visitors to the site are soon ghosts themselves, turning to ash, melting into walls and walking off buildings. With her friends disappearing one by one Mattie seeks the help of the man who bought Josh's old computer, Dexter (Ian Somerhalder) to find out just what caused Josh and everyone else to want to die.
Pulse is based on the incomprehensible japanese horror flick Kairo which I watched and was completely baffled by. The Americanization of Kairo at the very least clarifies the plot but that is really the film's only positive quality. Director Jim Sonzero crafts a typically murky, gray-green horror film that mimics the look of The Ring and The Grudge right down to the perky blonde lead.
I don't mean to write off Kristen Bell as merely perky and blonde. The feisty star of TV's Veronica Mars is a terrific young actress with a very bright future who simply made a bad choice in accepting a Japanese horror film off the scrap heap of dozens of J-horror flicks still awaiting an American adaptation. Bell has all american girl looks with a smart sexy smirk that is sadly dimmed by the dreary scare free atmospherics of Jim Sonzero's uninspired direction.
There is an interesting idea lost in the morass of Pulse. The film's plot combines vague assertions to George Romero and The Matrix. The dead emerging from our technology to suck out our souls is an anti-technology message right after the heart of any luddite or technophobe. Unfortunately director Jim Sonzero lacks the imagination to give this idea a proper examination. Instead, what we get is gray-green fuzziness and typical horror movie tropes.
All of the film's attempts at scares are hackneyed horror cliches in which friends and ghosts jump out from dark corners just as the film's soundtrack reaches a stilted, screeching crescendo causing our heroes to leap and scream. Maybe if you haven't seen this before you might get a bit of a jump but by the 10th or 15th time this scene repeats in Pulse you will be more irritated than jumpy.
Murky, dreary and dull, Pulse is a tension free horror slog through tame PG-13 scares. An interesting idea of the horrors of our modern Wi-Fi society squandered by direction that lacks imagination and ingenuity. When even the spunky, sexy Kristen Bell cannot break free of the dank, gloomy listlessness you know the film must be truly awful.
Not even hardcore horror fans, or fans of the Japanese original Kairo, will find anything worth watching in Pulse.
