An Exercise In Nonsense

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Pulse is a movie with a point. Almost a fable. The moral of Pulse is not to mess around with things you don't understand.Pulse has fairly decent pacing, and is more creepy/psychological than shock-horror, which I appreciate in today's torture-porn infused horror scene.While some parts of the movie are slightly unrealistic, in an Amazing Spiderman "no computer nerd uses Bing!" kinda way, for the most part the movie actually has the actors respond in a realistic way to what is happening. When a friend dies they are clearly emotionally disturbed, in a much more believable manner than throwing their hands in the air and screaming. When a static-infused computer-thing comes out of the computer screen, they don't sit there and try to talk to it or touch it, they get the heck out of there! All in all, I actually enjoyed this movie. The premise is good, the music rather unremarkable, the explanation of things is vague enough that I feel they didn't give it all away and ruin the terror, but I can see why people might have an issue with the ending, although I felt it was okay.

PLOT OUTLINE: After her hacker boyfriend hangs himself in front of her, psychology student Mattie Webber & her friends start receiving messages from the dead man, as well as seeing ghosts everywhere. Anyone who is exposed to these creatures are infected with a virus that causes them to commit suicide & the whole city is becoming exposed.This is yet another dumbed-down remake of a Japanese horror film. It comes co-written by horror legend Wes Craven & is directed by Jim Sonzero, who has had experience making commercials.While the original PULSE was not that great a film – it had a plot that was almost impossible to follow, & resembled an art film – this remake does not come anywhere near it. The reason is, despite a good script, the film's direction left a lot to be desired. Sonzero has a rather limited bag of tricks, which include sped-up motion, flashy cuts & CGI effects. These effects are thrust onto the viewer in the hope that they will be unnerved… yeah right.The central concept of Pulse is an extension of the same technophobia that this reviewer found to be irritating – we don't need a film which has the message that technology is evil – there must be someone in Hollywood who thinks that we're better off in the Dark Ages. That said, the idea that soul-sucking ghosts can invade our world through computers & cell phones does have some merit, considering the way our technology seems to be evolving.The acting is passable. Kristen Bell looks pretty but is perhaps the only member in the cast who can act, everyone else being reduced to cardboard cut-outs. There are some notable cameos from Ron Rifkin as Bell's shrink & Brad Dourif, who makes yet another notch in his long belt as a nutty café customer.When it comes to the big question – is this film scary – I would have to say that it isn't. Pulse goes through its 84-minute running time on autopilot, without anything interesting to justify the effort taken in making it. The CGI effects are okay but wholly unnecessary. As I said before, the film's message – that we have become too reliant on computers & cell phones – is out of place in this modern world.That said, the film does have some things going for it. The script manages to neat trick of explaining the original's plot without becoming ludicrous – the creatures can be kept at bay by red tape, while Sonzero brings a couple of new shocks to the table. The part where one of the students is attacked by a creature with multiple limbs that comes out of a washing machine; Kristen Bell's computer printing out a number of pages that, when assembled, resemble a skull; several shots of people killing themselves (the scene where a woman climbs onto a water tower & jumps off to her death is slightly disturbing) are these shocks but even they can't enliven the film.At the end of the day, Pulse has its moments, but fails to rise above the routine.

To me, the Japanese movie "Kairo" was an huge surprise. I was expecting a "Ringu" like Japanese horror movie but instead got a thought provoking, well scripted movie, that was not even really an horror at all. It was an highly original movie with some great themes in it. Like all successful or remotely interesting foreign movies, Hollywood also decided to remake this movie for the more mainstream audiences. It means that they changed quite a lot for this movie, which unfortunately is not for the good of it.I can definitely see how this movie can come across as incredibly confusing and as hard to understand nonsense, if you haven't seen the original movie. The original movie already was an incredibly hard one to follow at times but at least it all in the end made sense. This movie does however too hard its best to make sense, by simplifying lots of stuff in the movie. So what you have now in its core is a difficult main plot, with some simplistic explanations hanging around it. It doesn't make the movie easier but instead more ridicules. It's hard to buy anything in this movie, if you don't understand what the story in its essence is all supposed to be originally about.It was quite surprising to see how much of the story they had changed for this movie. The original movie in essence was all about loneliness, while this movie is simply about ghosts, causing some kind of apocalypse, when they get unleashed through the Internet. No, most of the changes are not for the good of this movie. Suddenly the ghost are murderous evil characters, trying to scare and kill people and even the reason for the red tape in this movie has changed into something quite ridicules and it doesn't even get explained well enough. The title "Pulse" even doesn't make sense anymore.This movie was obviously aiming toward an horror audience, with its creepy atmosphere, scare moments and lots of special effects. The average horror lover however will care very little about this story and are more interest in some good gore and scares, which this movie does simply not have. So it's kind of hard to tell what is the right audience for this movie, which should also be the reason why the movie didn't do too well and it's being rated quite poorly. This movie will get probably watched by mostly horror lovers, who will simply not love this movie.But in all honesty, it just isn't an horrible movie. But again, this might also probably be due to the fact that I already knew what the story was all about and heading toward because I had already seen the original Japanese production. I'm sure if I hadn't watched that one, I would had hated this movie far more, strangely enough because it would had been a far more confusing movie. Now I could understand the story, even when it didn't got told too well. Some of the good ideas of the original are still present in this movie, though they do not get handled too well. It's a simplistic movie, with an hard main story, that doesn't really know how to reach the right kind of audience. I can definitely say you are better of watching the original and then come back and revisit this movie. Changes are you'll probably like it better then.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This American horror film, shot in Romania, is one of the better movies of it's kind during the last several years. But I seem to be in a minority here as most viewers don't seem to share my opinion. The movie kept me interested all the way through and most of all, I thought it was scary. There's nothing worse than a horror film that doesn't scare you. {Anyone see "Boogeyman" lately?} I've heard the movie was hard to follow. Funny, I had no problem knowing what was going on. The special effects are very creepy. I'd rate this movie higher than "The Grudge" or even "The Ring," which are two other recent movies in this mold that were more popular but much harder to follow and not as scary. The overall look of the film is dark, bleak, and foreboding. But that may have more to do with being filmed in Romainia rather than the filmmakers overt attempt to make it appear that way. Either way, it adds to the creepiness of the movie. Give Pulse a try. It's so much better than what you've heard.