Not-So-Witty Headline: "Pulse Flatlines"
Went and saw the 10:00 show of Pulse in Frankfort. It's the latest in the line of remakes of Asian horror movies, and it's one major letdown.
Basically, imagine the washed-out color template of The Ring, the "evil Internet" theme of FearDotCom with a dash of the "ghost communication via electronics" from White Noise, a nonsensical script, and a whole bunch of red electrical tape thrown together. That's what Pulse looked like to me. Really, any progress that The Ring, The Grudge, or Dark Water made in convincing people that PG-13 J-Horror remakes are any good was nearly completely dashed away from the total mess that is Pulse.
And I really hope that Wes Craven's name is only attached to the writing credits for legal reasons, because if I were him, I'd have fought to get an Alan Smithee credit. (Then again, there was the whole "Wes Craven presents" credit in front of They, and what I've seen of that wasn't very impressive at all.) The script shows too much ambition for its own good, as it doesn't have anything really going for it. The ending is stupendously preposterous, the necessary exposition left me incredibly unsatisfied, there's very little suspense or tension, and frankly, the movie just didn't really frighten me at all (outside of one good jump scare).
Pulse fails as both a horror movie and an indictment of society's dependence on technology. It's not scary, it's not suspenseful, and it doesn't take the chance to truly dig deep into the separation that is caused by technology that was designed to connect us to one another. The cast isn't bad, but the horrible screenplay doesn't inject their characters with any sort of personality or reasons to make us the viewer want to see them live or die. We don't know who these characters are, we don't know what makes them tick or recognize any quirky personality traits. They just go through the motions, and likewise, so do the actors portraying them. No-name director Jim Sonzero also doesn't help matters much, as he apparently doesn't quite understand that making the movie look washed out and desaturated of most of its color does not make a tense atmosphere in and of itself.
Really, Pulse doesn't have much going on at all. It's obviously been neutered in order to earn the now-dreaded PG-13 rating. While I'm sure horror movies can still manage to have a few scares while maintaining a PG-13, Pulse is not one of them. It's poorly-executed disposable junk, for which Pulse gets a two out of five on the Sutton Scale. I plan on renting the original Japanese version sometime, and I hope this embarrassing remake is not indicative of its quality.
And to think, I could have put that $6.50 to better use and seen The Descent a second time.
Basically, imagine the washed-out color template of The Ring, the "evil Internet" theme of FearDotCom with a dash of the "ghost communication via electronics" from White Noise, a nonsensical script, and a whole bunch of red electrical tape thrown together. That's what Pulse looked like to me. Really, any progress that The Ring, The Grudge, or Dark Water made in convincing people that PG-13 J-Horror remakes are any good was nearly completely dashed away from the total mess that is Pulse.
And I really hope that Wes Craven's name is only attached to the writing credits for legal reasons, because if I were him, I'd have fought to get an Alan Smithee credit. (Then again, there was the whole "Wes Craven presents" credit in front of They, and what I've seen of that wasn't very impressive at all.) The script shows too much ambition for its own good, as it doesn't have anything really going for it. The ending is stupendously preposterous, the necessary exposition left me incredibly unsatisfied, there's very little suspense or tension, and frankly, the movie just didn't really frighten me at all (outside of one good jump scare).
Pulse fails as both a horror movie and an indictment of society's dependence on technology. It's not scary, it's not suspenseful, and it doesn't take the chance to truly dig deep into the separation that is caused by technology that was designed to connect us to one another. The cast isn't bad, but the horrible screenplay doesn't inject their characters with any sort of personality or reasons to make us the viewer want to see them live or die. We don't know who these characters are, we don't know what makes them tick or recognize any quirky personality traits. They just go through the motions, and likewise, so do the actors portraying them. No-name director Jim Sonzero also doesn't help matters much, as he apparently doesn't quite understand that making the movie look washed out and desaturated of most of its color does not make a tense atmosphere in and of itself.
Really, Pulse doesn't have much going on at all. It's obviously been neutered in order to earn the now-dreaded PG-13 rating. While I'm sure horror movies can still manage to have a few scares while maintaining a PG-13, Pulse is not one of them. It's poorly-executed disposable junk, for which Pulse gets a two out of five on the Sutton Scale. I plan on renting the original Japanese version sometime, and I hope this embarrassing remake is not indicative of its quality.
And to think, I could have put that $6.50 to better use and seen The Descent a second time.
posted by Matt Sutton at
3:43 AM
1 Comments:
Sadly, The Pulse opened locally but the Descent did not. No Clerks 2, no Descent.
Shenanigans!
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