I saw PULSE (the "unrated" version) just 5 days ago, and I feel even now that I can hardly remember half of what happened in the film...so generic and uninteresting did it turn out to be.

The film has a promising premise. Ghosts are using the internet to enter into our world, because they operate on a frequency that we've now been able to tune in to. I like that...it's a clean, simple concept that could have gone in a million directions. In PULSE, at least initially, it appears that the dead are someone able to infect those who encounter them online...essentially turning the living into death-craving half-zombies. Basically, they compel their occupants to commit suicide.

This all gets kicked off when the boyfriend of college student Kristen Bell commits suicide, more or less in front of her. Then various friends of hers do stupid things to get themselves killed as well, even though they figure out basically what is going on fairly early on.

This is one of those films where the low-budget has led the director into creating a world that isn't entirely recognizable. The main characters are all college students (I think)...but they never go to class and none of them live in apartments or dorms. They seem to prefer seedy loft-like spaces that have peeling paint, no lighting, moisture on the walls, etc. There are virtually no adults in the film at all...only poor Ron Rifkin, who must have lost a bet and was forced to play the world's most ineffectual psychiatrist. I presume he filmed his scenes with Bell in one day...and not a single moment of their time together adds anything to the film.

PULSE starts out as a horror story, but by the end, you realize it has morphed into a science fiction film...an apocalyptic one at that. The concluding minutes of the film are so far removed in tone, scope and genre from the opening minutes that it is kind of flabbergasting how jarring it is.

In the early going, the film generates a few chilling moments. Just the images of ghosts captured on the computer monitors are creepy, and the early scenes carry a sense of foreboding. But these same mildly successful elements are almost literally repeated time and time again, to vastly diminishing returns each time. The movie becomes tedious pretty quickly.

No one gives a particularly effective performance, mostly because the characters are almost utterly generic. Bell gains no points with me for her efforts. Ian Somerhalder (who was Boone on LOST) plays a computer geek, of sorts, who seems to become something akin to a love interested for Bell...but for no discernible reason. He is also quite unbelievable in his role. Samm Levine, a star of FREAKS AND GEEKS, turns up here, and that put a smile on my face until I realized this character was a complete cipher.

This film, perhaps, rises to the level of the low-budget films that make up the AFTER DARK HORRORFEST DVDs...horror films that couldn't muster up a theatrical release. It feels cheap. It feels self-important. And worst of all, it is boring. It certainly does NOT get the PULSE racing (sorry to end with a bad pun, but it's no worse than the ending of this film.)

It contains no suspense nor horror. I watched it in the theatre and got bored after 30 minutes. The special effects are exactly like those of a bad video game. I mean I can see they look obviously fake. The acting is like that of a bad B movie. It seems remaking a Japanese hit movie does not guarantee a success in North America.

Save your money on this.

This one was just meh...it was run-of-the-mill horror, designed to make you freak out about your technology use. I am pretty sure I got this free bundled with my Halloween remake and thats why it was on my DVD shelf. I watched it all the way through and then escorted it to my "sell" pile.