Pulse (2006)

APRIL 22, 2007

GENRE: GHOST, TEEN
SOURCE: HD-DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Pulse is the type of movie that is less a movie and more just a collection of scenes.

Pulse is the type of movie that makes you wonder why anyone bothered making it at all, let alone releasing it to theaters. In typical Dimension fashion, both the character and plot scenes have been edited out to keep the movie “fun”, yet all of the death scenes were also trimmed of anything worth seeing to keep it PG-13. So what’s left? Nothing. Garbage. Even the kids didn’t bother, despite coming out in the summer. It’s pretty sad when even a 14 year old girl looks at a trailer for a horror movie with TV people (and even an R&B singer) and says “nah”.

Pulse is the type of movie where someone meets someone else under strange circumstances and yet they are best friends in about one day’s time. Veronica Mars meets Boone because he bought her ex’s computer, and they are antagonistic toward each other. Yet the next day, after they meet again in a more civil manner, he’s the first person she calls when her friend disappears (and hilariously, he actually seems to know who the hell she’s talking about). And he’s determined to save her, a total stranger, and never seems concerned about his own friends and family.

Pulse is the type of movie that would introduce a seemingly benign form of protection (like garlic with vampires, or sodium with horrors of party beaches) and never bother really using it for anything. Here, red duct tape is the key to saving yourself. And with the exception of one character who uses it on every inch of his apartment, it’s never really utilized (as for an explanation – look elsewhere. This IS a Dimension movie). And in the film’s stupidest moment, one character goes about sealing his doors and windows with it, only to run out with about 6 inches of doorframe unsealed. So you think, “Oh shit, after all that it’s gonna get through the 6 inches of doorframe!” Nope. The fucking idiot REMOVES TAPE FROM A SEALED AREA AND LOOKS OUTSIDE. Then gets killed. What???? Why bother having him use the tape at all???

Pulse is the type of movie that knows it doesn’t make any goddamn sense, so they don’t even bother writing a climax, resulting in possibly the most half-assed lazy piece of shit ending in cinematic history. They don’t stop the ghost/monster/whatever the fucks they are, even though Boone uploads a virus that supposedly will stop them (I guess if that worked, then one scene would lead logically to the next, and thus the idea would not have fit in the grand scheme of things that is Pulse). No, instead they just go to Nebraska or some other wasteland where there’s no cell phone service. The climax is literally close-ups of a cell phone losing signal bars. The end. I’ve shut off movies halfway thru the first act that had better resolutions.

Pulse is the type of movie that would have Brad Dourif show up for one scene, spouting crazy talk, and then vanishing. How does he know what’s going on? Is he a part of it? And throughout the movie, we are told about some guy named Zegler or something who can help. Could it be Dourif???

Nope. He’s… some guy. Dourif never returns.

Look, if you have a character you keep mentioning but never seeing, and then you finally see him, he damn well better be some kickass character actor or at least SOMEONE you can say “oh cool, him.” Instead it’s just some no-name douche. They did the same thing in Snakes on a Plane. They kept mentioning some legendary snake expert guy, and you’re expecting like Christopher Walken, but it's no one. It’s the casting equivalent of blue balls.

Pulse is the type of movie that is best watched when you are drunk. And deceased.

As for the DVD extras, I don’t know. I got the HD DVD (hey its garbage but it looks real nice) and didn’t have time to watch them, since I usually watch the extras at work (where, shockingly, I don’t have an HD DVD player laying around).

Wes Craven supposedly wrote some of this. If any of the resulting film is his, then he’s approaching modern John Carpenter levels of mediocrity. At this point, I’d rather he went back to torture movies, like Music of the Heart.

What say you?