Wes Craven’s Pulse Starring Kristen Bell Doesn’t Scare or Entertain
Written by horror-master, Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street), Pulse takes a great concept and blows it up in a hail of fast imagery, and even faster shock values. It’s about ghosts killing people through their computer and cellular telephones. It’s about mass suicides as a result of depression caused by the use of such devices. But, while the concept works, the scares that made similar spooky films such as The Ring so successful is missing completely in Pulse.
Mattie, a young college student (Bell) finds her boyfriend – or at least the guy we can only assume is her boyfriend so depressed he commits suicide practically right in front of her. She talks her other friends into helping her look further into his death and the reasons for it, and they are all sent spiralling down a similar path. Then, ghosts are made all the more clear as the cause of it all.
These ghosts – or this one ghost in a barrage of different ghosts come out of computers or cell phones, and suck the “will to live” out of their victims. Then they take those people away completely. People just start disappearing into black ash. A new guy for Mattie, Dexter (Somerhalden) comes into the picture. Together, he and Mattie try to shut the ghosts and their operating system down – oddly enough long after everyone is dead.
Pulse doesn’t have great production values. The picture is depressing in itself. The special effects are mediocre at best. The ghosts are digital composited in and poorly done at that. Pulse doesn’t scare. In fact, the film leaves viewers feeling more numb than anything. If you think you’ll be able to find some value in seeing a “scary movie” with bad writing, bad acting, and even worse scares, be my guest – pay the $7 to $9 admission fee and see Pulse. But, you might be better off going to your local video store and using that money to rent several, much better scary movies for twice the value.
