Movie Details
| Title: | Pulse | |
| Director: | Kiyoshi Kurosawa | |
| Year: | 2001 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.08.05 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.08.05 | Alamo South Lamar | This Screening is part of event: FantasticFest 2005 Now, this one is not very new. It's actually pretty old, pre-dating all of the staples of the current Japanese horror remakes here in the States that have now become cliche and tired. I'll begin by saying I was probably too tired to see this movie. The fourth film of the day on the third of a four-day festival... What I didn't need was this deliberate pacing. I've seen the creepy boy peeking around the corner, I've seen the girl with hair in her face, I've seen the ghosts disappear and reappear. I've clearly seen this movie too late. I did however enjoy all of the ideas the film dealt with. I really liked the genre shift toward the end (a pattern that emerged in both this, P, and Dark Hours today), and also enjoyed the whole aftermath like it was almost a war but not really. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself for anyone that hasn't seen it. Pulse is about this website that shows a webcam of ghosts. When you see a ghost's face, you are irreversibly shocked to the point of not really being about to do much of anything for a few days and then you're compelled to commit suicide. There's also a ritual of taping up a room with red tape and after a while a ghost will appear there... and for some reason at this particular time there are now enough ghosts to appear whenever they want... or something. Like I said, I was pretty tired for it. I did enjoy one early scene where a teenager installs ISP software, going through the ridiculous install process and accepting the terms of agreement. However, it's immediately followed by a scene in a computer lab with some of the worse faux techno-babble ever. Maybe it's just because I know that particular area (I bet doctors cringe whenever they watch ER), but I have two pet peeves in movies and faux computer babble is one of them. "Enlarge the batch file." what? Why do you want to enlarge it and what good will that do? "Use conventional memory." Just stop it. I think I need to see this again to give it fair judgment. Sure it felt like I just watched a marathon through binoculars for two hours, but that maybe have been just me. Me and the baker's dozen of virtually identical Japanese horror films to come out since Pulse's release. They played trailers for Electric Dreams and Tron beforehand though. I love the Tron narration: "Tron, where love and escape don't compute." Classic. I keep forgetting the shorts. They were not very good today. The one that played before this, Popee the Performer: Great Magic, was a cheap little CG thing about magicians sawing each other in half trying to kill one another. The animation was... well let's just say I spent 10 weeks in a single class and churned out better stuff than this. the summary in my notebook: SUB-PAR. Random Notes: -the main kid wears a Gilley's shirt in this movie. That got a bit of a crowd response. |
