As much as I enjoyed 2002′s American remake of the Japanese horror film “The Ring,” some blame has to be put on its successful shoulders for the seemingly endless bombardment of Japanese horror clones. First came the slightly entertaining ‘The Grudge,’ then the abysmal ‘Dark Water,’ and now we’re forced to sit through the sleep-inducing “Pulse.” Or at least it almost put me to sleep. Damn you, readers, and your free will.
Rather than give this film’s asinine plot any more space than it deserves, I’ll try to wrap it up in a bitter little nutshell. Some techno-geek creates a computer virus that has the power to travel through any Internet connection with the intent to steal your will to live (I wish I was kidding), and the only thing that can stop it is a mascara-coated Kristen Bell, star of the seriously overrated “Veronica Mars.” While using the Internet as a gateway for evil is a rather topical idea, it was already ruined by 2002′s horrible ‘FearDotCom.’ ‘Pulse’ isn’t nearly as bad, but it falls into some of the same, common horror-movie traps, which keeps it from ever being anything more than “Not as bad as FearDotCom,” and that isn’t a compliment.
Rather than using a script that tries to think for itself or show any form of originality, ‘Pulse’ works as a checklist of the unfortunate state of modern horror films. Death of a close friend before the opening credits roll? Check. Spooky shower scene? Check. Ethnically diverse group of friends whose only defining character traits are their ethnicities? Check. A moderately well-known R & B singer/rapper in the cast? Check. Creepy bathroom scene? Check. A well-thought-out screenplay portrayed by a cast of actors and actresses that an audience would find compelling enough to stay awake through? Oooh…that box stays unchecked.
‘Pulse’ is the first starring role in a feature film for Kristen Bell, and it’s also the first time at the big dance for its main screenwriter, Ray Wright, and its director Jim Sonzero, and boy does it show. It would be unfair to dump the aforementioned laundry list of complaints against the script solely on the head of Wright. After all, it is based on the original Japanese script for ‘Kairo’ by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, which was actually far slower and more confusing than its American counterpart. Also, former horror icon-turned-check-cashing agency Wes Craven took a crack at it before it unceremoniously landed in Mr. Wright’s hands. So I’m just going to knit a nice little blame blanket and throw it over the entire trio. Unfortunately, director Sonzero gets sole blame for lumping on the atmosphere and flashy camera work that shoehorns ‘Pulse’ into the style-over-substance category. Bell, on the other hand, seems to realize that she’s in a terrible film and phones in a performance that anyone could have given.
‘Pulse’ arrives on DVD in an unrated edition, which just like Buena Vista’s unrated ‘Dark Water’ has little reason to warrant such promise of extra gore, cussing, or nudity. In fact, the scenes that were cut are non-gruesome scenes of suicide, most of which actually elicit laughter rather than the fear or feelings of loss the filmmakers were desperately trying to achieve. In one scene Bell and her pointlessly diverse group of ‘homies’ are walking across campus, and as they cut in front of a water tower, an unidentified person suddenly flings himself from the top. It took almost five minutes for me to quell my laughter. With the exception of the well-shot death scenes for the characters Isabell and Stone, and cameos by two of my favorite character actors, Octavia Spencer and the great Brad Dourif, ‘Pulse’ is a paint-by-numbers film, seemingly with children in control of the paintbrush.
The 2.35:1, letterboxed presentation is far better than the film deserves. The blacks are deep and dark, and the special effects do look cool. While it is like putting perfume on a pig, it helps to elevate the film out of the trough filled with slop like ‘Dark Water’ or ‘FearDotCom.’
Yet another case of no news is good news. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio sounded fine, the dialogue was never muffled, and the music never overpowered a scene. The first of two unnecessary commentaries has director Sonzero and special makeup effects designer Gary Tunnicliffe proving once again that not everyone deserves a microphone and time to talk about their underachieving film. Sonzero makes silly comments about his cast bringing a “real urban feel for the dialogue” to the film and proceeds to talk about his schlock as if it were high art. The second commentary features producers Mike Leahy and Joel Soisson along with visual effects supervisor Kevin O’ Neil, editor Kirk Morri, and line producer Ron Vecchiarelli. In order to keep everyone at home from snoozing in their lounge chairs, the powers that be also brought in actor Sam Levine to liven up the group. Thankfully Levine brings some of the humor that made him a cult favorite in the short lived, yet brilliant television show ‘Freaks and Geeks.’
The seven-minute-long featurette ‘Creating the Fear’ showcases these filmmakers acting as if they’re making anything other than a silly “B” film. The second featurette, ‘The Visual Effects of Pulse,” is a six-minute focus on the most interesting actor in the film, the special effects. Far more interesting than the prior self-congratulatory love fest, “Visual Effects’ showcases the exceptional work the team did in bridging the gap between live and digital effects. The final special feature, ‘Pulse and the Paranormal,’ is a look at the ridiculous notion that the dead can communicate with the living via “electromagnetic energy.” A surprising amount of ‘authorities’ on the subject are interviewed, including the jackasses from the Sci-Fi channel’s ‘Ghost Hunters.’ If all this ‘electro-ghost’ genre can offer us is stuff like ‘Pulse’ or the drowsy-formula film “White Noise,” then I hope this is its final transmission.
‘Pulse’ is a silly movie with a plot that revolves around an abstract enemy that strikes with no real rhyme or reason, and it features endless amounts of happy coincidences. Strangers bump into each other whenever they need to find one another, a viral epidemic breaks out and nobody thinks to go to the doctor, and so on. While ‘Pulse’ is a film focusing on suicide, the only real tragedy is that it got a major theatrical release while the same studio dropped the far better ‘Feast’ in a handful of theaters and then dumped it onto DVD.
3/10 Stars
Horror Yearbook would like to welcome our new writer Tyler Shainline to the staff.
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