PULSE

US, 2006, 90 minutes, Colour.
Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Milian, Rick Gonzales, Jonathan Tucker.
Directed by Jim Sonzero.

Pulse is a Hollywood remake of the Japanese horror film, Kairo (2001). The screenplay has been adapted for an American setting with young students and computer hackers. The screenplay was written by Wes Craven who was initially going to direct the film.

The film is set on a campus, has young people making connections on the internet – but making connections to a world beyond this one. And the connections can’t be shut down – and they have dire effects, transforming people after killing them, making lives bewildering, a technological infection of the world. Can it be stopped? Who will stop it? What lessons can be learnt?

Not a particularly startling thriller but does have some atmosphere. It is like many of the remakes of the Japanese horror films of the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

1. The popularity of this kind of horror film? Ghost story? The relationship with modern technology? Based on an original Japanese film?

2. The adaptation from Japan to the United States? Characters, situations, themes? The credibility of a ghost story in the United States?

3. The colour photography, unsaturated? Atmosphere – with more sunshine at the end denoting optimism? The city, the campus? The university halls, apartments? The interiors of rooms – especially with technology? The atmospheric score?

4. The title, the ghosts, life beat? Death?

5. The initial focus on Josh, his experience in the university, in the library, seeing the ghost and being taken over? His withdrawal from contact, with Mattie? The later explanation – on the video on the computer screen? His virus, his wanting to control it, wanting to see the designer? Pleading, out of control? His going to the library, consumed by the ghost? The black marks? Mattie going to see him, his sudden appearance, hanging himself? His apology to Mattie?

6. Mattie as the heroine of the film, seen with Isabell, Stone and Tim? Talking, her worry about Josh? Going to see him, frightened by his appearance, the decaying state of his apartment? His killing himself? Her going to see the psychiatrist, saying she didn’t want to talk, weeping, talking, her concern that she was responsible? That she could have done something? His reassuring her? Her receiving the message on the computer screen asking her forgiveness?

7. Isabell, her friend, sharing rooms, her relationship with Tim and Stone? Isabell and the concern about Stone, support of Mattie, going to see Stone, infected – and being destroyed?

8. Stone, computers, his personality, relationship with Mattie and Isabell? His volunteering to go to Josh’s room, the search, his being infected, his being discovered – and his being destroyed? Tim, friendship? His being infected?

9. Mattie, going to the landlady, her cleaning up the room, repainting? Her having sold the computer? Giving her the information, her going to see Dexter? Her being upset because of the messages from Josh, the computer not turned on? The clash with Dexter?

10. Dexter, personality, his car, computers, paying for the computer? Turning it on, suggesting that Mattie see what was there, his being able to download Josh’s video diary? The revelation? The attempts to destroy the hard disk? Its rebooting? The going to the car, the escape, the pursuit by the ghosts?

11. Dexter and Mattie, out of mobile phone signal reach, away from computers? The message from the radio – the possibility of saving the world without the technology?

12. The film’s theory about ghosts being able to infect viruses, come through the computers, take on a life of their own, overwhelm humans and destroy them?

13. The plausibility of this kind of theory – at least, in this kind of science fiction, ghost, horror film?