Pulse

It's a trend that should have ended with the first one.

This was boring and self-conscious with its artsy pretensions. I was looking all around at the scenery to see if I could tell where it was filmed rather than paying too much attention to the story. Still, I didn't miss anything.

I'm not surprised that this is from producer Wes Craven. It's full of his anti-technology hippie ideals, with plenty of nonsensical "movie science" that teens and pre-teens will take as fact.

Of course, all of the technology being slammed here as detrimental to our existence by removing in-person interactions, are being used fully by all those making this tripe, including Craven himself, and by the blank-minded ones who will love this and not even realize the irony that it comments on their technology addiction.

I'm also sick of all the grays, sickly-looking greens and putrid blues used in these type of films to present the civilized, yet oppressive, society, along with the grungy, unclean characters with pale faces and dark eyes under constant fluorescent lighting. Cities don't look like this, there is color and life all around, even in the poorest areas. This film's view is the misguided angst of rebellious teens with nothing to rebel against.

And then we are treated to Craven's simplistic Waltons-like ending that, once you go rural, you are colorful and clean. Here's a suggestion, Wes Craven, why don't you go rural and give up all your non-personal technology, so that we don't have to see any of your productions again?

The hacker Josh (Jonathan Tucker) invades the computer of Douglas Ziegler (Kel O'Neil), who is developing a powerful wireless signal and accidentally releases a mysterious force that takes the will to live of the human beings, generating a suicide epidemic and increasing the force. His girlfriend and student of psychology Mattie (Kristen Bell) sees each one of their common friends die and the destruction of the modern world, and together with her new acquaintance Dexter (Ian Somerhalder), they try to plant a virus developed by Josh in the network to shutdown the system and save mankind.

The storyline of "Pulse" is very original and has potential, with the concept of wireless signal bringing some evil and lethal entity. However, the screenplay is weak, presenting characters without any previous development and making this interesting theme similar to a pilot of a TV show. The lead actress Kristen Bell is gorgeous and maybe a good actress for romantic comedies, but her face has no expression in the dramatic scenes when her friends die, or in the creepy and scary scenes, when she is attacked by the forces. Anyway, Ian Somerhalder from "Lost' has a good performance and this movie is a good entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Pulse"

Years ago when Wes Craven was still attached to direct this American remake of the almost perfect Japanese thriller, I was quite excited to see it. Seeing as Craven had never made a bad movie (except for the Hills Have Eyes sequel, which was taken away from him), I thought it would be great. Unexpectedly, the project was canceled when Bob Weinstein thought it was too similar to THE RING and sent Craven to work on the disastrous CURSED instead. Eventually Weinstein found a way to make a cheaper, ultra dumbed down version of PULSE, completely scraping any intelligence left in Craven's original screenplay (he still maintains a writing credit, which Craven says does not reflect his work). The result is one of the top five worst horror movies ever made. A complete and total insult to anyone who pays money to watch it. This made-for-teens only abomination represents everything that is wrong with the horror genre today: over-explanation to the point of aggravation (the producers must think we are brain-dead as an audience), the casting of pop stars instead of actual actors (Christina Milian), and cookie-cutter editing due the number of times the picture was re-edited and re-shot to get a PG-13 rating. Even Kristen Bell, great on "Veronica Mars", seems bored here. You will be too if you make the mistake of watching this. It's ironic that a movie called PULSE doesn't have one. 0/10.

I went to see Pulse knowing it was PG13, so I didn't expect much gore, but couldn't the writer of this story at least have done something more with it?

Pulse is a movie about a hacker who releases a strange computer virus which immediately affects computers everywhere as well as cell phones and even TV screens. We soon find out that the virus is really the dead who have found a way to return to the living world. What they want is the life force of every living being. So it is up to our heroes to try and find a way to stop them before they can consume the entire world.

That's the plot which in my opinion was a rather clever idea. Too bad that the story makes very little sense and is filled with implausibilities that go against the very story that the writer and director were trying to get across. I won't explained these because of the spoilers that would be involved. Of course there aren't many spoilers anyway, since the commercials give much of it away.

The acting was decent, and some of the visuals were nice, but there is very little suspense. This is more of a simple shock film like so many other horror movies that have been filling our theaters for about three years. There is one horror movie that is the exception, and that is The Descent which was released last week. If you want to see one of the best horror movies in the past couple years, go see that one instead and forget about Pulse.

I had just went to see a pre-screening of pulse last night, and I must say that it was not all that bad compared to recent horror films. The main problem with pulse is that in trying to be original it borrows from other films. I understand that this is an American version of a film from Japan. The film just reminded me of too many other films for me really to appreciate it. Once again this was a pre-screening and I am 100% sure that parts of the version I have seen will be changed. The other problem with pulse is that it is very hard to follow at times, and you are left to interpret the movie in your own way. The deaths are also very cheesy, and not really that creative. I am a huge horror fan and I was really interested to see this film because of the trailer that I very much enjoyed. The movie gets a boost in points for breaking away from the normal horror films we have been seeing as of late. Another thing that I had to pick at was the mediocre acting of the main star Kristen Bell. She just did not give a great performance...the rest of the cast with the exception of Ziagler give somewhat good performances. To continue on the scares were another part that bothered me..once again we see a pg13 movie relying on loud noises and crashes to make the audience jump...but on a brighter side there are a few scenes (the laundry room scene, and the car attack scene towards the end) that were actually pretty scary. One last thing the ending is not all that great, it is one of those things that you either love or hate...the audience at our screening mainly hated it, I will assume it will be changed come the release date. Overall "Pulse" is a decent horror film which is a step above the horror movies that I have seen as of late, just do not be surprised if you are left scratching your head after this film is over.