Review #78: Pulse (2006)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Jim Sonzero (Director)

Kristen Bell (Mattie): Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Heroes & Veronica Mars T.V. series (pictured right)

Christina Milian (Isabell): Man of the House (2005), Be Cool (2005)

Ian Somerhalder (Dexter): Lost T.V. series

Jonathan Tucker (Josh): The Ruins

Rick Gonzalez (Stone): Old School (2003)

Samm Levine (Tim): Club Dread (2004), Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

Octavia Spencer (Land lady): Bad Santa (2003)

Trailer:


Plot:
A college student, Josh, comes across an evil human spirit in the library and a few days later he hangs himself in front of his girlfriend, Mattie. Shortly afterwards, Mattie is chatting on-line and she receives an IM (Instant Message for those older folks) from Josh, "Help me." Mattie gets upset and then she and her friends plays it off as a computer virus.

Later on Mattie goes to track down Josh's computer to see if anyone has been playing a joke on her. She finds out that his landlord has sold it to another person, Dexter. On a side note: the landlord is the black chick that Billy Bob Thorton bangs hard in the movie Bad Santa. "I won't sh*t right for a week." That is a great movie! Kristen Bell pictured below...that's a great lookin' gal!

Mattie tracks down Dexter and confronts...bitches...him out about sending IM's to her pretending to be Josh. Already signs of an unstable woman...hmm? Dexter claims he knows nothing about it and proves to her by showing her Josh's computer disassembled in the trunk of his car. Mattie then receives a package from Josh with a zip drive and red tape inside and a note stating, "It helps keep them out." Meanwhile, the city is experiencing an epidemic of suicides. Yawn! Pretty boring right?

Dexter reassembles the computer and discovers some horrific video feeds of suicide and shows them to Mattie. She freaks out and gets pissed off at him for showing her. And then she starts seeing weird glimpses of dead people as other civilians are randomly committing suicide around the city. The population starts to dwindle and no one seems to be talking about it except Mattie. What do they call that...hear no evil, speak no evil?

Eventually her friends die off one by one and we learn that the world is being taken over by evil spirits who are using our technology to spill into our world. Dexter and Mattie learns that Josh had hacked into a Professor Zieglar's computer project.

Zieglar was working on a project that involved "frequencies we never knew existed"...like FM radio! Josh had accidentally opened a door way to our world through these frequencies. An the evil spirits have been slowly entering into our world. Even the slightest cell phone signal allows the evil spirits to enter the world. It seems that plastering the red tape all around the room helps keep out the spirits.

Dexter has figured out that the zip drive Josh sent Mattie was a virus created to stop the spirits. They ask Zieglar were his server is and then leave with hopes of uploading the virus and destroying the spirits. Unfortunately they fail and Dexter and Mattie make a break for the countryside abandoning all technology behind. Moral of the story: technology is evil. Didn't Battlestar Galactica teach us that?

This film is based loosely off a Japanese version named, Kairo (2001). While both films do not venture down the same plot line, they do share some common themes. Both films focus on suicide and loneliness. Kairo focuses on death and the afterlife are nothing but eternal loneliness while the American version is based on technology bringing back the dead spirits through a new form of communication. I would like to communicate with Christian Milian! (pictured right) I know where I would put my ear to listen.

Pulse...that's something I had to check after watching it...to see if I'm still alive or just furious. I'm not a big fan of this movie. It's kind of painful to watch. The pace is too slow and many things are not easily explained. The movie would be wayyy much better if it had just skipped to the last twenty minutes.

Pulse takes a few watchings to actually figure out what's really going on...probably because I got so bored watching it. I've seen it around four or five times now, and it's still unbearable to watch...at least for me. I guess that's what they studios get for releasing another pile of crap PG-13 movie. If Kristen Bell wasn't around for eye candy, then this movie would completely suck.

The style and setting of the film is completely dark, I guess it rematches the movie's tone and theme of suicide and death. It's done very closely to the style of many of the Japanese supernatural horror films, which usually I tend to like. But for some odd reason, Pulse didn't do anything for me.

Even with the dark style, the movie doesn't really present itself as creepy or scary. If you're looking for a film with a splash of color, then keeping going and pass on this one. As a gift I'll leave you with another picture of Kristen Bell to add color to the darkness.

Misc. Movie Trivia:

-Film opened on August 11, 2006 and made $20.2 million at the Box Office ($8.2 million opening weekend)
-Kirsten Dunst turned down the role of Mattie
-Based loosely off a Japanese version named Kairo