obligatory pulse post
So of course, despite it being nearly two in the morning, and despite the fact that I am sort of tired, I am compelled to tell you about the movie Pulse, which I have been anticipating for months and months despite all the signs that it was going to be teh worst movie evar: the 86-minute length, the switching release dates, the relative silence regarding the movie, the rookie director, the fact that it's a remake of a lukewarm Japanese film, the lack of pre-screening for critics to tell us about the film. I knew this film was going to suck rocks, but it was something I'd been making a huge deal about for months, and it stars Kristen Bell, so shut up.
It turns out that this movie is so bad that it goes beyond "so bad it's good" and nearly lands in "so bad that it's not even good so it's bad again." But then we must remember that this is a horror flick, which magically makes it not horrible, at least as far as horror flicks go.
Previews and initial write-ups be damned, this movie is not about some addictive website marketing ploy of doom, but really some crazy sinister force that is apparently travelling through computers, resulting in, they actually say this, "a suicide epidemic." Betcha didn't know that suicide was a disease. Well, it is. The major symptom is taking one's own life. In typical horror movie style, we have several cheap scares, but they're so predictable that they don't even work. In my experience, there's usually at least one good shock or scare that throws me off-guard. Not so much here. In fact, the scares are so not-scary that they border on hilarious. The evil force, whatever it is, is shown here and there, and it's weird looking, even creepy, but not so much scary. The one-dimensional characters make with the being scared, and it's all very typical, and after a while I nearly forget the fact that Kristen Bell and Ron Rifkin are in this movie. To make it worse, this movie just had to be PG-13, so the bathtub scene provides nothing to appreciate. :p
The movie doesn't even seem to try to be clever. The characters are just there. The evil ghost things are just there. The plot... isn't really there at all. Subtle pieces of what plot exists are just ignored as we apparently must assume that once we see a character on-screen, they are acquainted with the rest of the characters and plot--not that it takes much from our vantage point, but still. Several scenes just seem pointless--who cares if we're in college and sitting in psych class and whatever else? Sadly, who really cares about much of this movie? Even more sadly, the movie tries to explain everything, and it would have been much better off just following a set of consistent rules that weren't laid out in pointless narration, because the open-endedness "maybe this is what's going on" would at least keep you thinking outside the theater. But instead, there's an annoying know-it-all character who explains everything, and it makes no sense, because the ghosts have already broken all the rules that were prechewed and spit out at us; whatever this thing is that travels through phone lines and wireless communication quickly inhabits unplugged computers and bathtubs and clothes dryers and last time I checked, there was no phone line or wireless receptor in any of those.
Then, the movie just ends. Kristen's character narrates a tiny little spiel about what happened, and this is the world now, bye. Stark credits, no love anywhere to be found.
As far as movies go, it just sucks, obviously. As far as horror movies go, well, it's slightly better than the crappy ones. Admittedly, I apparently don't scare as easily as everyone who will see this movie (and some of the people with whom I watched it were honestly scared, which might have made my laughter seem inappropriate), so it works at some level. Just not mine. And yet, it provided some amusing commentary, so I enjoyed it a bit... but more as a comedy than a thriller. Whoops.
Rating: 2 out of 5 (obviously skewed by my Kristen Bell obsession)
It turns out that this movie is so bad that it goes beyond "so bad it's good" and nearly lands in "so bad that it's not even good so it's bad again." But then we must remember that this is a horror flick, which magically makes it not horrible, at least as far as horror flicks go.
Previews and initial write-ups be damned, this movie is not about some addictive website marketing ploy of doom, but really some crazy sinister force that is apparently travelling through computers, resulting in, they actually say this, "a suicide epidemic." Betcha didn't know that suicide was a disease. Well, it is. The major symptom is taking one's own life. In typical horror movie style, we have several cheap scares, but they're so predictable that they don't even work. In my experience, there's usually at least one good shock or scare that throws me off-guard. Not so much here. In fact, the scares are so not-scary that they border on hilarious. The evil force, whatever it is, is shown here and there, and it's weird looking, even creepy, but not so much scary. The one-dimensional characters make with the being scared, and it's all very typical, and after a while I nearly forget the fact that Kristen Bell and Ron Rifkin are in this movie. To make it worse, this movie just had to be PG-13, so the bathtub scene provides nothing to appreciate. :p
The movie doesn't even seem to try to be clever. The characters are just there. The evil ghost things are just there. The plot... isn't really there at all. Subtle pieces of what plot exists are just ignored as we apparently must assume that once we see a character on-screen, they are acquainted with the rest of the characters and plot--not that it takes much from our vantage point, but still. Several scenes just seem pointless--who cares if we're in college and sitting in psych class and whatever else? Sadly, who really cares about much of this movie? Even more sadly, the movie tries to explain everything, and it would have been much better off just following a set of consistent rules that weren't laid out in pointless narration, because the open-endedness "maybe this is what's going on" would at least keep you thinking outside the theater. But instead, there's an annoying know-it-all character who explains everything, and it makes no sense, because the ghosts have already broken all the rules that were prechewed and spit out at us; whatever this thing is that travels through phone lines and wireless communication quickly inhabits unplugged computers and bathtubs and clothes dryers and last time I checked, there was no phone line or wireless receptor in any of those.
Then, the movie just ends. Kristen's character narrates a tiny little spiel about what happened, and this is the world now, bye. Stark credits, no love anywhere to be found.
As far as movies go, it just sucks, obviously. As far as horror movies go, well, it's slightly better than the crappy ones. Admittedly, I apparently don't scare as easily as everyone who will see this movie (and some of the people with whom I watched it were honestly scared, which might have made my laughter seem inappropriate), so it works at some level. Just not mine. And yet, it provided some amusing commentary, so I enjoyed it a bit... but more as a comedy than a thriller. Whoops.
Rating: 2 out of 5 (obviously skewed by my Kristen Bell obsession)