31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Pulse

Pulse aka Kairo

119 mins.

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

2001/Japan

I don't even know where to begin with this one, it is two separate stories that intertwine at the end.  It's a very heavy handed movie, it is not scary in the sense of jump scares, but more of a depressing sense of dread.  A bit too long, just shy of two hours, filled with symbolism and non-linear ideas of death and ghosts, you are not going to walk away from this one unaffected.

Trying to explain this movie in a couple paragraphs or sum up the true essence of the feeling it is getting across is impossible.  I will try to break it down to it's most basics.  In the first story line, some friends work in a greenhouse and another co-worker/friend is working on a computer program for something.  The project is due tomorrow and no one has heard from this person in a week.  So Michi decides to go to his place and see what's up.  She finds him there, he is pretty aloof and quiet.  He tells her the disc she came for is in a pile, then he casually goes into another room and hangs himself.  Once the disc is viewed there is a pic on there of the kid that killed himself standing in front of a bunch of his computer monitors with the same pic they are looking at in one of the monitors making infinite pics and another monitor shows the face of someone.  Later one the dead kid's co-worker goes to his place to investigate.  He finds a black stain on the wall where the kid hung himself, a piece of paper that says "Forbidden Room" and a door sealed off with red tape.  So of course he peels the tape and enters the room where he encounters a ghost.  The kid becomes depressed and eventually Michi finds him as a black stain too.

Second story, which cuts back and forth with the other deals with Ryosuke whose computer automatically starts accessing a website showing video of people alone in darkened rooms.  At school a classmate tells Ryosuke that he thinks souls are starting to invade the physical world, then Ryosuke's friend suggests ghosts would want to save humans from the afterlife.  Before you know it the shit hits the fan and people start committing suicide and disappearing nationwide.  Michi from the first story and Ryosuke eventually meet up and try to flee Tokyo which is being evacuated, but will they make it out in time before they just become a stain on the wall as well?

I am sure I didn't make that sound interesting at all or compelling to watch.  This movie was not what I was expecting.  I knew it was like ghosts in the computer or something, so I was expecting something more long the lines of The Ring or Shutter or One Missed Call, but this one is a little closer in league with The Cure.  Another Kurosawa movie that runs long and is more filled with dread than actual horror.  Pulse is more about loneliness and being alone in a world where everyone is connected to each other via technology.  There is no heaven or hell, there is no rotting in the ground, your soul lives in nothingness.  It is really a bleak movie and weighs heavy on you as you are watching it.  Dread in every sense of the word.  Of course because this movie is so good, it had to get an American remake and two direct-to-DVD sequels.  Watering down the poetic symbolic nature of the original.  Pulse is another movie dealing with a virus that can potentially wipe out mankind, this one just runs through technology and haunts us into nonexistence.

This film is not for everyone.  Like I said it is long, it is not action packed and sometimes it is hard to follow exactly what is going on.  The pay off for sitting through it is a feeling of depression and hopelessness.  If this all sounds like a good time, then you should definitely check out Pulse.  It's really an original well made movie that will make you think and linger with you after it is over.  I enjoyed it more after it sank it and you can explore what you just saw.  Again the Japanese curse us through technology.  Laid to Rest this is not, for as mindless and pointless as that move was, Pulse is well thought out and shot with purpose, again the color red used to represent death and an unsettling music score that almost seems out of place compared to other J-horror type movies.  Probably should have watch Hubie Halloween after this one to uplift the spirits.

Yeah the more I think about it, this is a great movie.