showdown If you are a (horror-)genre-fan then a screening is entertaining, but do not expect too much. Mostly, it's style over substance.The visual effects are good, but not outstanding. The main weak point is the story. The story is - compared to the US-"Ring"-Remake - much weaker, more illogical, confusing and much more worse explained. So, mainly, it lacks a new, genuine idea which could lie beneath the horror. The ghosts and attacks are scary, but unfortunately the background is not, it's just not profound enough.I must say that I'm not a particular fan of Kristen Bell. She is okay in the role, but I'm not enthusiastic about her. The other actors are okay, too.Maybe the alternate ending/deleted scene on the DVD can compensate for the weaknesses of this movie, at least a bit.

DigitalRevenantX7 PLOT OUTLINE: After her hacker boyfriend hangs himself in front of her, psychology student Mattie Webber & her friends start receiving messages from the dead man, as well as seeing ghosts everywhere. Anyone who is exposed to these creatures are infected with a virus that causes them to commit suicide & the whole city is becoming exposed.This is yet another dumbed-down remake of a Japanese horror film. It comes co-written by horror legend Wes Craven & is directed by Jim Sonzero, who has had experience making commercials.While the original PULSE was not that great a film – it had a plot that was almost impossible to follow, & resembled an art film – this remake does not come anywhere near it. The reason is, despite a good script, the film's direction left a lot to be desired. Sonzero has a rather limited bag of tricks, which include sped-up motion, flashy cuts & CGI effects. These effects are thrust onto the viewer in the hope that they will be unnerved… yeah right.The central concept of Pulse is an extension of the same technophobia that this reviewer found to be irritating – we don't need a film which has the message that technology is evil – there must be someone in Hollywood who thinks that we're better off in the Dark Ages. That said, the idea that soul-sucking ghosts can invade our world through computers & cell phones does have some merit, considering the way our technology seems to be evolving.The acting is passable. Kristen Bell looks pretty but is perhaps the only member in the cast who can act, everyone else being reduced to cardboard cut-outs. There are some notable cameos from Ron Rifkin as Bell's shrink & Brad Dourif, who makes yet another notch in his long belt as a nutty café customer.When it comes to the big question – is this film scary – I would have to say that it isn't. Pulse goes through its 84-minute running time on autopilot, without anything interesting to justify the effort taken in making it. The CGI effects are okay but wholly unnecessary. As I said before, the film's message – that we have become too reliant on computers & cell phones – is out of place in this modern world.That said, the film does have some things going for it. The script manages to neat trick of explaining the original's plot without becoming ludicrous – the creatures can be kept at bay by red tape, while Sonzero brings a couple of new shocks to the table. The part where one of the students is attacked by a creature with multiple limbs that comes out of a washing machine; Kristen Bell's computer printing out a number of pages that, when assembled, resemble a skull; several shots of people killing themselves (the scene where a woman climbs onto a water tower & jumps off to her death is slightly disturbing) are these shocks but even they can't enliven the film.At the end of the day, Pulse has its moments, but fails to rise above the routine.

Woodyanders The spirits of the dead discover a way to contact the living and enter into their world through electronic devices. Moreover, these decidedly nasty and dangerous spirits suck the lifeforce from the living. A select group of folks find out what's going on, but can they figure out a way to stop the angry and lethal spirits before it's too late? Director Jim Sonzero, working from an inspired and intriguing script by Wes Craven and Ray Wright, relates the absorbing premise at a steady pace, stages the shock set pieces with considerable flair and skill (a sequence in an underground apartment laundry room is especially harrowing), and does an expert job of creating and maintaining a potently spooky, paranoid and sinister atmosphere which becomes more increasingly eerie and unsettling as the plot unfolds towards a startlingly downbeat surprise apocalyptic conclusion. This film further benefits from solid acting by the sturdy cast: Kristen Bell is appealing as the perky and worried Mattie, Ian Somerhalder is likewise fine as shrewd computer boffin Dexter, Brad Dourif has a neat cameo as a raving doomsayer in a café, plus there are sound contributions from Christina Milian as the sassy Isabelle Fuentes, Rick Gonzalez as slick internet hustler Stone, Samm Levine as the easygoing Tim, and Kel O'Neil as the unhinged Douglas Ziegler. The ghosts are genuinely freaky and scary. The special effects are excellently done and quite convincing. Best of all, there's no obtrusive silly humor to detract from the grim severity of the bleak premise. The filmmakers warrant extra points for staying true to said bleak premise to the literal bitter end. Why, we even get a valid and provocative central point on how our over-reliance on technology could possibly reap the seeds of our eminent destruction. Mark Plummer's gloomy cinematography gives the picture an appropriately dreary look. Elia Cmiral's shivery and ominous score hits the shuddery spot. An unjustly maligned and underrated fright feature.

fedor8 Avril Lavigne dyes her hair blonde, then watches as her boyfriend opens the gates to internet ghostdom, after which everything turns even more blue than before. The wraiths try their best to be as scary as the ones in "Kairo", the Japanese original, but to no avail. Even Avril doesn't seem quite as scared as she should ought to be.Apparently, the blue-loving undead had been waiting all these millenia for mankind to finally get internet and mobile phones so they can invade us. Why were TVs not good enough? The acting is pretty bad. The low point was one of the movie's numerous amateurs shouting in the blueish-hue streets about WiFis. There is something inherently annoying about a bad actress mentioning WiFis in a mediocre horror film about internet terror.The photography is quite good (I actually love blue movies), but there is no sense in yet another inferior remake of a superior Japanese original. There used to be a time when the Japanese copied just about every aspect of American culture... A role-reversal?