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Pulse
EMAILPRINTDimension Films / The Weinstein Company
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 103 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Horror | Mystery | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Wes Craven
Kiyoshi Kurosawa (screenplay Kairo)
Directed by: Jim Sonzero
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 11, 2006
DVD: December 5, 2006
Running Time: 87 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for violent and disturbing images
Starring Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Milian, Rick Gonzalez, Riki Lindhome, Jonathan Tucker, Amanda Tepe, and Samm Levine
Jim Sonzero directs this remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's apocalyptic horror classic.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Pulse (Kairo)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Ken Fox
To say Wes Craven's rewrite of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 "Pulse" isn't as bad as it could have been sounds like faint praise, but Kurosawa's "Pulse" is one of the true masterpieces of recent Asian horror, and the track record for Hollywood horror redos isn't great.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
American director Jim Sonzero has taken the same campus setting and plot and added some rationale by "science-fictioning" it.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
If Pulse is unsurprising as a horror movie (come on: chalky, soul-sucking freaks again?), as a campaign against the Internet, digital piracy, cellphones, and anything that computes anything (like laptops or brains), it's a riot.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
In this American remake of the spooky, more-atmospheric-than-coherent 2005 J-horror thriller, the ghosts blink and crackle into existence with an electromagnetic sputter, but really, they're not so different from the gauzy, see-through spirits of yesteryear.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Ultimately, the glacial pace kills Pulse. What was dreadful and trance-like in the original feels here like nothing-much-at-all sandwiched between some stock horror jolts.
Read Full Review >Empire James Dyer
An unrewarding experience that won't scare you, but might make you think twice before opening email attachments.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
A horror film dealing with the terrors lurking via our computers, cell phones and other electronic devices, Pulse isn't nearly as scary as watching your hard drive crash or having your BlackBerry conk out in the middle of a vital call.
Read Full Review >Variety Robert Koehler
A dumbed-down remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's disturbingly abstract Japanese horror film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The remake begins with the same premise and appropriates the most striking visuals, grafting them onto a more explicable but equally dull George Romero-style doomsday scenario.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Nathan Lee
The American version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse" mimics the plot fundamentals, but lacks any traces of Mr. Kurosawa’s creepy minimalism and conceptual rigor.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Has maybe a half-dozen moderately frightening scenes.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
It's not scary, it's not chilling, and it's not interesting.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
Tedious, baffling and ultimately laughable.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Hideously ugly to look at and not even worth following.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Pulse bears more than a slight resemblance to a 1994 American horror called "Ghost in the Machine." They didn't screen that stinker in advance for critics, either.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
Laughter erupts during scenes and certain close-ups that were designed to induce screams.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It's a curiously dull Americanization of one of the finest examples of subtle, moody J-horror out there.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Here, the CG effects are plentiful, but the scare factor rarely rises above the level of a viral email, and the desaturated color scheme of Sonzero and cinematographer Mark Plummer makes every frame look as though it was developed in a solution of vomit and ash.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.5 (out of 10) based on 103 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Kevin B gave it a0:
I don't know why I even bother going to horror movies now a days. Because 99.9% of the time, the stuff directors chrurn out is crap, like Pulse. There is nothing scary about a computer virus. Unless of course you are a complete computer nerd. What makes this movie even worse, is the horrible acting. Big surprise, right? I pray for the day when a good horror movie comes out that will actually scare me. I've played computer games scarier than this sad excuse for a movie. The only thing scary about this is that I wasted $8.50 on a movie ticket to see it.
Robert M. gave it a1:
The only saving grace of this movie is Kristen Bell. The rest of it is lazy screenwriting. And red tape? Really? Come on... "they take your will to live." That's scary? No. It isn't. It's a good thing I didn't have to pay to rent this.
beardish gave it a2:
Moive remakes usually have the red flag indicating to potential viewers not to watch them. I'd sure like to say that Pulse wasn't like that, but I can't. I hate seeing good movies being remade into something that amounts to ........
Chad S. gave it a2:
"Pulse" blows. This filmmaker obviously has watched "Signs", the way in which he expands the crisis' scope from a local one to a full-scale apocalypse. Give M. Night Shyamalan some credit, the man knows how to direct his actors. For instance, he'd give more instructions to Brad Dourif than "act really, really crazy, man." As the two leads encounter survivors fleeing the city, that's when the real blowing begins. More over-acting, or maybe it's a consciousness that we gravitate towards pretty people. Would they for just anybody? The bad dialogue ably defeats Kristin Bell from the get-go. She laments not seeing the warning signs of her late boyfriend, and yet it takes ages for her, or anybody to notice that a friend under similar circumstances is also unresponsive to his text messages and cell calls.
WAJ gave it a2:
Although this movie had some decent visual effects and notable cinematography, the plot and acting left much to be desired. The movie seemed to have been made to show the director's/writer's hatred of how technology has become part of everyones lives. The beginning of the story spent more time acting as a commercial for razor phones rather than developing the charachters. By the end, the "moral" of the story is smashed repeatedly over your head, but the story itself strays and begins making less and less sense. It seems as though the writer or director began to run out of ideas and borrowed from much better horror/suspense movies such as 28 days later and The Shining. This movie is clearly not worth the ten dollars and definitely not worth the two hours or so of your life that it steals from you.
Sean C. gave it a2:
Everyone wanted to see this movie...the question I have for thoes people, is why? Why on earth would you ever want to disgrace your week by comming to the theaters and dropping 8 bucks on the biggest piece of crap you will see this summer. In fact I am so convinced this is the biggest failure in the last 10 years, I am willing to stake my annual income that each and every teen actor who appeared in this forsaken film will get hate mail by the millions.
Mr. Cheese gave it a1:
Remakes have had a dark history , some of them have defined what NOT to watch. Pulse is no other story, this "horror" movie tries to incorporate all of the best elements of horror and fails in all. The "scary" moments are extremely predictable and the story is laughable (dead people attacking by internet and phone connections, wanting to be whole again, how nice of them). The acting could definitely be better, you might be asking yourself if the main characters are mentally challenged since they walk to their demise without hesitating. The only good thing about this movie? It's a great comedy! My friends and I laughed throughout the entire movie, only watch this movie if you're a die-hard fan of Kurosawa's. Otherwise, you might not want to spend your hard-earned cash on this one and you deserve better.
