Opens August 11, 2006

Rated PG-13

Starring Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder

Directed by Jim Sonzero

Written by Wes Craven and Ray Wright

Studio: Dimension Films

Review by John C. Snider © 2006

We fear our technology almost as much as we love it.  This fact is reflected again and again in our entertainment.  The atomic bomb, biotechnology, computers - as symbols they're all nearly as powerful as they are actual tools.

And what better technology to represent the fear of the unknown than the internet?  I mean, who runs it?  Who owns it?  Who controls it?  It is a source of attraction and repulsion; of suspicion and obsession.

Japanese horror auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa explored this fear in his 2001 film Pulse.  In it, the ghosts of the dead used the internet to haunt - and eventually overpower - the living.  Pulse was typical of the "J-horror" genre: stylistic, quirky, unsettling, and inscrutable like most things Japanese.

Americans - especially young Americans - have embraced J-horror the same way they embraced anime.  It offers a refreshing alternative to the staleness of homegrown horror.  And so, of course, Hollywood has decided that J-horror is worth copying.   Why come up with something fresh yourself when you can glom on to somebody else's creativity?  Pulse is the latest in a handful of American remakes: The Grudge, The Ring, and soon, The Eye.  (Okay, that last one's not technically J-horror, but you get the picture).  The results have been all over the map; sometimes laughable, sometimes effective, sometimes just outright lame.

Hollywood's Pulse - co-written, if you believe the credits, by horror master Wes Craven - falls somewhere in the twilight zone between effective and lame.  It's not as scary as it could have been, but it's not exactly a total flop, either.

Kristen Bell is Mattie Webber (Get it?...Internet?..."Web?") one of a small, multicultural circle of friends living in collegiate squalor.  Like most young folks these days, their moment-by-moment existences are ruled by communications technology.  They are forever surfing the web, talking on their cellphones, or text-messaging one another (even if they're sitting in adjacent barstools).  When Kristin's boyfriend Josh commits suicide, her search for answers leads to a mysterious website containing flickering images of despondent youth.

Despite being dead, Josh keeps emailing his friends ("Help me"), and one by one, they are also "infected" by whatever it was that led Josh to take his own life.  Pretty soon it's a nationwide emergency, as people begin seeing terrifying creatures, and dying in all sorts of revolting ways (usually ending up as a smear on the wall, or as a puff of ash).  What's going on?  Are the dead attacking the living through the World Wide Web?  Is it an alien invasion?  Or something even worse?

Admittedly, this new Pulse has its creepy, even jolting, moments.  The special effects are first-rate, and it does a slightly better job than its Asian inspiration at pointing (albeit tangentially) at an answer to the mystery.  But it's generally bland and predictable: most of the scares follow obvious set-ups.  Mattie and her friends, despite their ethnic variety, are lacking in personalities.  Their sequential demises elicit barely a sigh of regret.

In the final analysis, the American Pulse offers nothing over Japanese Pulse except 90210 casting.  Horror-philes are advised to revisit Kurosawa's original rather than waste a trip to the cinema to watch a rehash.

Genre fans will perk up when Brad Dourif, veteran of several genre classics including Dune and The Lord of the Rings, makes a cafe cameo as "Thin Bookish Guy" - but they'll be disappointed when he subsequently contributes nothing.

Rating: C

Links

Pulse Official Website

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