Movie Review: Pulse

I hate movies that begin with all out action, and confusion, it’s like you are thrown right into the battlefield with no explanation as to why, or what is going on. Usually when movies start like this, they end like this.

In 2006 director Jim Sonzero remade (copied) Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's movie Pulse. Got America all hyped with terrifying commercials and then called it ‘The Years Scariest Movie’.

Sorry Pulse failed for me, and who decided that this was ‘scary’. Even though it had it’s good parts, nothing was ‘oh my god I’m so scared’ scary. I think the main reasoning is because this movie pushes it boundaries. Where it could have just been a low-key type of haunt it had to progress in a matter of minutes into a world epidemic.

So what is Pulse? Well I’m honestly not sure why that name was chosen. It should have been called virus. It would have made more sense.

Okay so there is this college girl named Mattie; a typical blond bimbo, her boyfriend Josh is ignoring her blah blah…She waits a few days to see him. God only knows why? Then decides finally to go and see him at his apartment.
While she visits he looks like he is out of it, and is covered in some nasty black seaweed looking veins or bruises, what have you. He then walks like a zombie into another room as he tells her to wait outside, he hangs himself.

Oh dear, next things look like they’re about to get good because Josh sends all of his friends instant messages from ‘beyond the grave’… dunt, dunt, dunnnn. Each message is asking for help, over and over again.

One of Josh’s friends breaks into the apartment to see if he had left the computer on. But the computer is gone! Oh no’ze!!! Then something bad happens to him. Oopise! Should have been more careful now shouldn’t you of.

So yeah, that’s were we have our first problem. You see this friend disappears; yet no one seemed to notice throughout the movie. Hmm, guess he wasn’t cool enough to think about.

Moving on…

Suicides are happening left and right. Mattie decides to go on a quest to find Josh’s computer, and luck is on her side (go figure), she finds the guy who bought the computer off of the apartment buildings landlord pretty quickly from a guy named Dexter. Dexter lets her know it’s not him who has been instant messaging people because he hasn’t even turned it on yet.
When he does finally plug it in he finds a series of strange images. (The Ring’s vibe is present here) He then shows the images to Mattie who runs away like the bimbo she is.

Mattie tries to play things off as normal (even though she has had a few unexplained run ins with the ghoulies) until she gets a package that was sent by Josh 2 days before he died.
This tape is the key to survival. You see the Internet gooblie goblins cannot get in if you tape up all the windows and doors with it.

Now the movie all of a sudden twists into an all out world virus. The virus is spread through electronic devices and suddenly the whole world is being affected. The ghosts or whatever they are suck the life out of the humans until they either commit suicide or turn into a black mass of dust.

Oh so how do they stop this epidemic? Well Dexter has found the key. You see he has discovered that Josh had hacked into someone’s system and unleashed the ghosts or soul suckers. So now he has to hack into the system himself and find out whose system Josh hacked into to unleash it.

Next they have to track down the guy, whom Dexter finds pretty quickly, and stop the ghost virus, or whatever the hell it is.

Are they able to stop the virus? Or do they just die like everyone else?

So basically it is a movie about what could happen (although the odds are slim to... never) if people keep on relying on electronic devices. Yay, a moral! Blah.

OPINION:

For me the movie had some good spooks here and there, with some pretty creepy visuals. But the ghosts were all blurry. So it’s nothing to jump out of your seat from. Not only that, it’s very obvious when one is about to appear. Nothing jumps out at you and causes a heart palpitation.

The movie would have been scary if it weren’t for its ridiculous and unbelievable plot. A world without electronic devices such as cell phones, TV, and computers is more frightening.

They could have done a movie based on how humans would react without such devices, but then they had to go and throw in these ridiculous ghosts that I still have no idea why they were present and totally ruin it.

Not only that but a lot of things went unanswered, for one the question ‘why’ was present in my mind quite a few times. Like why were Mattie and Dexter the only ones in the world that knew how to stop this virus? No one else!
Just because everyone disappears or commits suicide, why were their no cars left in the city of all places? Where’d they go? Why was Mattie so easily able to escape from the ‘ghosts’, yet everyone else who seemed to get close encounters ended up toast? Why didn’t Mattie put up the red tape when she had her first ghost encounter? Why was Josh’s ghost sending instant messages, asking for help, yet nothing came of it? One would think that the movies plot would take the characters on a quest to finding Josh and helping his soul or something… but it never did. WHY, WHY, WHY!?!?

OVERALL:

It had a good catch in the beginning, and just failed to deliver. Too many important details went to the trash and went unanswered, it’s almost as if the director just decided to add them in, then forget about them. To make the movie longer I suppose, I honestly don’t know why. A lot of extra junk like that could have just been deleted to save the viewer some time.

It’s left sort of open ended, so I am sure a part 2 will spring up, and be even worse than the first.

MYTH: Year’s scariest movie =

BUSTED!