To me, this movie is perfection.

hyped garbage

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

So the apocalypse has been brought forth by ghosts who want to suck the lifeforce out of the living (as the first film sets things up). That's a pretty neat concept for any horror movie. Except, in "Pulse 2" not too much is done with it. Instead the story focuses on a divorced man trying to protect his daughter from his ghostly ex-wife, trying to get her hands on her. It's applaudable that the scripts takes different routes, presenting us new protagonists (instead of trying nothing new by whooping up another bunch of teenagers), but it hardly makes up for an exciting movie. The plot is oddly structured too, as the first act exists solely to lead the viewer up the wrong garden (after about half an hour, it gets clear who the real protagonists are). There are a few entertaining moments - like the scene with the naked woman half melted into a black goo on the floor - but they remain nothing more than just moments. The story is pretty thin and the ghostly images are severely underwhelming. Nothing ever gets scary in this film. And what on earth was up with all those obvious green screen effects? A lot of backdrops were used for both exteriors and interiors (the sequences in the cabin were just a bit too much of all this). On the one hand it created a weird look & feel for the film, but on the other hand it's just too distracting for the viewer (I spent most of the running time figuring out how they composed all those shots, instead of getting involved with the story, acting, etc). So, "Pulse 2" turned out a strange viewing experience: interesting from a technical point of view and a bit offbeat in some ways, but way too average and unconvincing as a scary movie. Still, it's good the producers didn't go flat-out for what could be expected in a nowadays sequel. "Pulse 2" turned out something 'different', and while not all of it works like it should, it's not as bad as most people claim it is.

PLOT OUTLINE: The world has been invaded by ghosts who enter this realm through computers & cell phones. Michelle Kramer, a single mother who lost custody of her daughter Justine to her unfaithful husband, goes out on the streets looking for her, only to find that the child is actually with her father. Michelle, who is unaware that she is actually dead, tries to get her daughter back while her ex-husband does his best to save the child from her.PULSE was one of a spate of horror films made in Japan during the boom of the late-90s / early 00s. This particular film was the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a filmmaker who was not unlike David Lynch, with his work being almost universally hard to follow due to having murky impenetrable plots. That said, Pulse was the greatest success that Kurosawa ever had, probably due to the strong atmosphere that he had invested in the film. The execs at Hollywood made the decision to conduct a remake. This remake was strictly a mediocre affair, the only good thing it did was having explained all the plot dead-ends that the original failed to do.While it was a rather dull remake, the film only just made its money back, prompting the execs at Dimension Studios to greenlight not one but TWO sequels, of which Pulse 2: Afterlife and Invasion was the first. The man responsible for making the film was Joel Soisson, a director who is known in the industry as a 'hatchet man'; his career consisting of stepping in to finish other people's films & making cheap sequels to genre films.With Pulse 2, Soisson figured that the few fans the remake had would be already familiar with the concept, so he decided not to invest any energy in re-establishing the concept, instead hitting the ground running.The first thing you'd notice about this film is the fact that the film suffers from a very poorly written script. You'd think that having spent close to twenty years in the B-movie gutter would make Soisson a good filmmaker. He does have good experience. But the fact is, Soisson is quite a bad director & even worse writer. The script he delivers for Pulse 2 is written according to cliché & has some absurd characterisations. The female characters here are so badly drawn that the viewer is left groaning. Georgina Rylance, who plays the mother, delivers her shrill characterisation with a completely flat performance that becomes the source of unintentional laughter. The 'surprise' revelation that she is actually a ghost is telegraphed miles in advance & only serves to make the viewer groan in disbelief. As for the rest of the cast, only the male actors manage to give good performances, most notably Jamie Bamber, who plays the father. Bamber is the only actor who gives us reason to feel sympathy for him.Acting & script aside, what really sinks the film is the rampant overuse of digital effects. Most of the background shots & sets consist of still images digitally inserted into the film, the actors doing their thing in front of a green screen. This unimaginative use of CGI is pointless to say the least & reeks of lazy filmmaking. The sets are not the only victims of digitalis imageris insertis – the ghosts themselves look like they were taken from a video game!Another flaw with Soisson's approach is the way he mounts the shocks. The set-pieces – Rylance's uncle covering himself with dead cat entrails; a fat man stripped down to his underwear jumping off a bridge; a gas station attendant pouring petrol all over himself; a man having sex with a partially-disintegrated Boti Bliss – are not only lousy, they veer into bad taste.

I"m a big fan of the horror genre, and watching this movie from beginning to end was one of the stupidest things that i've ever done.The first PULSE movie in 2006 wasn't perfect, but it was a good movie. This is just another bad sequel that shouldn't be made. The acting is wooden, the characters were complete and utter idiots, the story is extremely weak, and the effects are slapped on in the laziest way possible.My biggest complaint (and you will agree with me) is that 90% of the film is green screened. That make the movie even lazier.Please do me a favor and don't watch this movie.1/10

Do not see this movie. There, I warned you. It is an absolute pile of garbage. I'm not even talking about the plot, story, screen writing or the acting, I am talking about the way the film was shot. The entire thing is shot in a sound studio next to a blue screen. The first minute of this film look creepy and promising. What follows is an absolute disaster. The actors are not even interacting with one another. It is glaringly obvious that one actor was shot doing his or her part in front of a blue screen, then another, then another, then it was all layered together. None of the actors are even looking at one another because they are not there. This movie sucked, and it looked like hell. What a waste of time and money.