Pulse (2006)

Pulse is yet another American adaptation of a Japanese horror film. I don't want to say that with too much skepticism because I've like the Ring and Grudge movies way more than the originals (hello, minority opinion), but Pulse is just ridiculous and from what I've read it excises any social commentary offered by the original.

The terrible premise: Ghosts have found a way to enter our world through electronic devices such as computers and cell phones! Also, toilets and bedrooms!

It starts with some college kid wandering into a library that looks like the holding chambers in Saw. Like, there is clearly more wrong with this scenario than ghost attacks. This university needs some funding.

So, this kid bites the dust. Soon his girlfriend (poor Kristen Bell) is investigating along with her friends, including Christina Milian for no reason. All the friends take turns visiting Dead Friend's apartment and dying horribly until Kristen Bell hooks up with Ian Somerhalder and they figure out that ghosts have found a way to enter our world through wi-fi, cell phones, etc.

The only thing that can keep the ghosts out is red electrical tape, for no reason. So a bunch of kids start taping themselves in their rooms and hiding from the ghosts. By the way, the ghosts have, like, a special flash animation that comes up on your computer (EVEN IF YOU UNPLUG IT!) when they attack which reads, "Do you want to meet a ghost?" Apparently no one on campus can contain their curiosity and when you click on the words it starts showing you webcams of people killing themselves.

Speaking of "people," everyone campus starts disappearing from ghost attacks and all the staff are like, "It's a flu epidemic. You are imagining things, Veronica Mars." The grief couselor yells at her and says she's crazy. Another professor reads the newspaper in front of a lecture hall with five people in it. Which doesn't make much sense since Christina Milian took some shit earlier just for coming in late.

Also, there are periodic news reports assuring the public that the sudden 80% suicide rate is one big coincidence and not to worry. So, Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder start looking for some college kid who invented new frequencies or something, allowing the ghosts to come through. And Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder have both clicked on the ghosty flash animation a bunch of times and aren't dead for some reason.

At some point, everyone starts catching on that there are a lot fewer people around than there used to be and it's a national crisis. Suddenly, the movie becomes 28 Days Later and the whole world is empty except for bands of survivors struggling to reach "dead zones," which are places with no wi-fi or cell phone reception.

By the way, this whole time there are tons of ghost attacks that take place nowhere near any electronic devices, such as a public bathroom where Kristen Bell is taking a dump and sees a ghost through a crack in the door. One of her friends is attacked in a bedroom where it has been explicitly established there is no computer.

Oh, and Kristen Bell lives in a swank, cavernous apartment, which is pretty remarkable since she's studying at a university with no working lightbulbs, only sputtering flourescents that tend to shatter for no reason.

Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder try to crash the ghosty hard drive in a basement somewhere, but they just come back stronger. So they drive out to the country where they realize KRISTEN BELL STILL HAS CELL PHONE RECEPTION! So ghosts come out of it and try to kill them by sitting on the room and punching through the windshield and shit.

Finally, Kristen Bell does some voiceover where she explains that "our lives are different now" and humans can only live in places with no wi-fi or cell reception. She explains, "What was supposed to bring us together in fact opened the door to evil forces none of us could have imagined." I cannot believe that's the moral of the story. It's not like I'm going to spend less time on the phone because I'm scared of dying from ghosty pop-up ads.

The last shot is the kid from the opening scene standing in a window looking into camera. Or it's his ghost, I don't think it matters.

Recommendation: Skip it.