Review of Pulse (2006) by Nathan H — 23 Dec 2009

"Pulse" is probably the most incomprehensible Japanese-inspired horror movie I've ever seen, but I have to give it some credit: much of its incomprehensibility is a direct result of grand ambition. Many of the other recent Asian horror flicks ("One Missed Call," "Shutter," "The Eye," "The Grudge") seemed to follow the same stupid story: a pissed-off ghost wants to kill a bunch of people, and usually utilizes technology in order to do so. Somehow.

The movies were bad enough that you spent most of their running time simply formulating objections to the storytelling and to the logic. "But wait," you'd say, "if the ghost was really pissed off, and was really able to put him/herself into a cell phone, why couldn't he/she just zap someone really quick instead of waiting six days to suddenly appear and...and..." The movies have become a parody of themselves, an SNL skit waiting to happen.

But "Pulse," despite being terrible, actually tried to be different. Here, we have a movie that actually has ambitions to social commentary. Every character is busy typing away text messages, updating social networks, playing video games, etc., falling further and further from the real world. Eventually, somehow, ghosts start using the technology somehow, and it traps souls inside of it, and people become zombies...or something. I don't really know what happens or how it happens, to be honest, and the social commentary is embarrassingly obvious, but at least "Pulse" tried. And even though the film was relentlessly dark (lights seemed never to work, and every day seemed to be a cloudy day), I appreciated the super-bleak ending, a world that wasn't returned to normal. A world on the edge of apocalypse. Usually, these horror movies work in little scares, safe scares that allow for sequels, but "Pulse" just went ahead and destroyed the entire world. It took big risks. No, they didn't really pay off, but I appreciated the effort.