Once again the Internet proves to be the downfall of humanity, only this time it has nothing to do with porn.
First off, let me say that if you haven’t seen the first Pulse movie, then you’re going to be a little lost here, because the sequel picks up at most three days after the first. The basic idea is that some scientist stumbled upon an incredibly high frequency wireless band that somehow allowed the dead to come back to our world through cell phone and WiFi signals. This situation wouldn’t be so bad except that the dead are both pissed off and hungry for life. They suck the life energy from the living much like the vampires in the much cooler Steve Railsback movie Lifeforce, which leads to a creepy, fungus-like infection that grows in the victims until they either kill themselves, dissolve into ashes, or melt into a black, tarry goo. And to top it all off, the victims then come back through the Internet and repeat the process on another victim. In the end this seems to be a needlessly complicated series of events.
Thrust into this cycle is Jamie Bamber (better known as Apollo from the current Battlestar Galactica series), a recent divorcee trying to save his daughter from this ghostly apocalypse, and I really can’t say much more without giving away a pretty big plot point. It’s not necessarily one that you won’t see coming, but regardless I don’t want to spoil it for those interested in watching this movie.
Pulse 2 ends up being like most post-apocalyptic movies with the father and daughter on the run from both the ghosts and the amoral and/or frightened human beings who either take advantage of the situation or simply don’t know how to deal with it. And unfortunately, it doesn’t fare well in comparison for two reasons: 1) Bamber and his daughter wouldn’t have to be on the run if he hadn’t done something so stupid it had me yelling at the screen, and 2) none of the characters are particularly interesting or likeable. With the exception of the little girl, I could have cared less if they had all died and became flickering WiFi ghosts, and the only reason I cared at all about the girl is that I don’t particularly like seeing kids killed in movies.
And that brings me to something I’ve been wanting to say to horror filmmakers for a while now: one of the keys to effective horror (hell, effective movies) is that we care about the characters. The writer John D. McDonald, who wrote among other things the great Travis McGee stories and the novel Cape Fear famously said that a good story is “something interesting happening to a character you come to care about.” Now the whole “something interesting happening” in Pulse 2 can be debated, but what’s clear is that the characters are uniformly stupid and selfish and their triumphs and defeats meant nothing to me. There were some genuinely tense moments in this movie, but I can’t help but think how much more effective they would have been had I been more emotionally invested in the story.
Something else that took away from the story was the incessant use of green screen backgrounds. I lost count of how many moments in the film where the actors looked completely disconnected to their surroundings. There were so many, in fact, that I wondered if this wasn’t some strategy on the filmmaker’s part to create a sense of confusion as to what’s real and what isn’t, but after listening to the commentary, I don’t think that’s the case. This just seems to be an arbitrary choice that took away from the immediacy of the shots, which made me care even less about what was going on.
This is really just a mediocre movie that probably didn’t need to be made. While the concept of how the ghosts come back is pretty novel, it’s not enough to make this fun or interesting.
Both the video and audio transfer was good for this movie. The video was presented in Widescreen and the audio is Dolby Digital 5.1. There were no discernible problems with either.
Audio Commentary by Writer/Director Joel Soisson, Producer Michael Leahy, Co-Producer Christian Agypt, Line Producer Ron Vechiarelli, Editor Kirk Morri, Makeup Effects Supervisor Gary J. Tunnicliffe, and Visual Effects Supervisor Keven O’Neill – These guys spend most of the movie talking about the green-screen effects, and judging by the time, effort, and money involved, I really don’t see why they didn’t just use sets.
Deleted Scenes
Circle of Death (running time: 1:48) – I really wish they had kept this in, because it explained quite a bit about who the ghosts were and how they were coming back.
Guilt (running time: 1:52) – This one was missing the special effects, and was rather boring. I can see why they cut it from the movie.
A Sneak Peak at Pulse 3 (running time: 00:45) – Doesn’t give a lot of information, and really didn’t peek my interest in watching it.
I won’t go so far as to say that this is a bad movie—just a mediocre one. As much as I’ve enjoyed Jamie Bamber in other things like Battlestar Galactica and Horatio Hornblower, he just wasn’t given enough to work with here. Like a ghost, Pulse 2 doesn’t leave an impression: it simply hangs around for a bit then fades away. Not recommended.
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Dimension Extreme presents Pulse 2. Directed by Joel Soisson. Starring Jamie Bamber, Georgina Rylance, Karley Scott Collins, Boti Bliss, Todd Giebenhain, William Prael, and Lee Carlington. Written by Joel Soisson. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated R. Released on DVD: September 30, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.
