Pulse is an American film released on 11 August 2006 and starring Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder and Christina Milian. It is loosely based on the 2001 Japanese horror film Kairo. The Weinstein Company distributed the film in the United States through its Dimension Films label. Neo Art & Logic produced the film and Jim Sonzero directed the script written by Wes Craven and Ray Wright.

Release

The film's planned release date was 3 March 2006, but was delayed until to 11 August 2006. In the US it was rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Terror, Disturbing Images, Language, Sensuality and Thematic Material.

Taglines:

• You are now infected.
• There are some frequencies we were never meant to find.

Plot

Josh enters a dark university library intending to meet Douglas Ziegler. There he is attacked by a humanoid spirit that sucks the will to live out of him. Some days later, Josh's girlfriend, Mattie visits his apartment and finds him looking pale shortly before he commits suicide by hanging himself with an ethernet cable.

Mattie and her friends begin to receive online messages from Josh asking for help but assume that Josh's computer is still on and that a virus is creating the messages. Mattie learns that Josh's computer has been sold to Dexter McCarthy (Dex), who finds a number of strange videos on the computer.

Mattie receives a package that Josh mailed two days before he died. Inside are rolls of red tape and a message telling her that the tape keeps "them" out, although he doesn't know why. Later, Dex visits Mattie and shows her video messages Josh was sending to Zieglar. Josh had hacked Zieglar's computer system, stolen and then distributed a virus. This virus had unlocked a portal that connected the realm of the living to the realm of the dead. Josh believed he had coded a counter to the virus and wanted to meet Zieglar at the library. Josh's counter-program is found on a memory stick taped inside the PC case with red tape.

Dex and Mattie visit Zieglar and find his room entirely plastered in red tape. Zieglar tells them of a project he worked on where he found "frequencies no one knew existed." Opening these frequencies somehow allowed the spirits to travel to the world of the living. Zieglar also tells them that that these spirits "take away your will to live" and where to find the main server infected with the virus.

Dex and Mattie find the server and upload Josh's fix, causing the system to crash and the spirits to vanish. Moments later, however, the system reboots and the spirits return leaving Mattie and Dexter with no option but to flee the city by car. Over the car radio, Mattie and Dex hear a radio report from the Army announcing the location of several "safe zones" where there are no Internet connections, cell phones, or televisions. As Dex and Mattie drive to a safe zone, the film concludes with a voice-over from Mattie saying "We can never go back. The cities are theirs now. Instead of bringing us together, technology actually connected us to forces that we could have never imagined. The world we knew is gone, but the will to live never dies. Not for us, and not for them" and clips of abandoned cities including a window of an apartment with Josh looking through it.

Cast

Box office

The film grossed over $8 million in its opening weekend in the United States. By its close on 12 October 2006 the film had grossed just over $20 million in the US. Foreign box office was just over $7.5 million, for a worldwide take of almost $28 million, compared to a production budget of approximately $20.5 million.^[1] As a DVD rental the film has grossed a further $25 million.^[2]

Reception

Pulse had a poor critical reception. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an aggregate score of 12% and an average rating of 3.5/10, commenting that it is "a stale remake" that "bypasses the emotional substance of the original".^[3]

Differences between Kairo & Pulse

This film is different from the original in many ways. The Japanese original focuses on society and questions about both suicide and the end of the world, specifically the belief that death and the afterlife are nothing but eternal loneliness.

The American remake's focus is technology and bringing the dead back through a new form of communication, focusing on the phenomenon of Instrumental TransCommunication. While it has scenes that have characters drawing connections between suicide and loneliness, it has little plot relation to the original movie, instead creating its own story and using scarce elements of its original.

Sequels

Two direct-to-video sequels ? Pulse 2: Afterlife^[4] and Pulse: Invasion.^[5] ? have been planned for release in late 2008 and early 2009, both to be written and directed by Joel Soisson, writer of Highlander: Endgame and writer/director of The Prophecy: Uprising and The Prophecy: Forsaken.

References

External links

• Pulse official website

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