The early portions of this decade gave us some truly great films from the land of the rising sun. It was a time when Japanese horror, better known as "J-horror" to us horror fan weirdos, was a genre that was really firing on all cylinders, giving us kickass filmmakers like Norio Tsuruta, Hideo Nakata and Takashi Miike, and a time at which American horror films were really floundering. It's no wonder why America got flooded by remakes of Asian horror films - the movies across the pond were absolutely fucking fantastic, while the domestic stuff was just really blase on pretty much all levels."Pulse," or "Kairo" as it's known to Japanese audiences (and yes, folks, this induction covers the Japanese original film, not the American abortion and the two amazingly shitty sequels that sprung from it), ranks as one of the very best J-horror epics of all time. I say epic because "Pulse" is a true EPIC in every sense of the word. It tells a very big story for a horror film, and despite its limited budget, "Pulse" just feels like a really, really big deal. In addition to that, this is a horror movie that actually SAYS something about who we are as human beings, and doesn't merely pay lip service to its grand ambitions of human commentary; they're right out there in the open for everyone to deal with. This is also a movie that makes you care about its characters like no other. As far as the list of the ten best horror movies of this decade go, "Pulse" has to rank respectably in the top five.
The movie contains commentary on one of the very basic but very real conundrums currently plaguing the human race - our overreliance on technology, and at the same time, our increasing sense of seclusion and loneliness as a result of the loss of personal human contact, with text messaging, email, and, of course, facebook wall posts replacing actual interaction. And believe me, folks, I'm definitely not saying I'm above any of that. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee anyone reading this that I probably am MORE guilty of being a digital-age cyber junkie than any of my half-dozen fans. On the online world, I may come across as confident and articulate. In the real world, I'm a clumsy, awkward dork.
"Pulse" takes that concept and adds a terrifying supernatural twist to it. In the early stages of the film, Taguchi, a worker at a plant sales company working on a computer disk, has been missing for days. Enter Kudo Michi (Kumiko Aso, who is both hot AND a great actress; yes, Jessica Alba, you can be both), one of his colleagues. Concerned for Taguchi, she goes to his apartment, where after a short conversation, he nonchalantly hangs himself.
Thus begins the spiraling-out-of-control aspect of the plot, and one that surprisingly makes a great deal of sense to anyone who has done a little reading up on the metaphysics of ghosts. It is commonly believed by many paranormal experts that all things are made of some kind of energy; when we die, we leave behind bi-electric residues, which is one explanation for the existence of ghosts. In the world of "Pulse," the spirits themselves have discovered the very real kind of rampant electrical energy known as the Internet, and used it as a gateway to invade the world of the living. And once they do invade, "Pulse" takes on nothing less than an apocalyptic feel reminiscent of the best "Twilight Zone" episodes.
More than just a grand commentary on the human race (and one that NEVER gets preachy and didactic, mind you - I believe EVERYONE can relate to the message of "Pulse" regardless of political orientation and social status), however, "Pulse" is simply a kickass human story at its very root. It is very complex, and difficult to explain on a simple plot basis, but I'll do my best.
After the bizarre hanging murder/suicide that opens the film, the movie centers on two unrelated characters - Michi, who has already been introduced to us, and Kawashima Ryosuke (Haruhiko Kato). Each character has a separate storyline that covers the events of the ghosts invading and eventually eliminating damn near all human life in the world. Much of Michi's arc concerns the character and her friends attempting to make sense of the death of their coworker at the beginning of the film. Of course, by the end of the movie, all of Michi's friends are dead, and have been converted into spirits in the never-ending cycle of invasion.
In "Pulse," the ghosts do not murder their victims like Kayako Saeki or Sadako Yamamura. They seem to be able to sense the inner loneliness of each character, and at some point, the unseen villains in "Pulse" merely TAKE their victims, leaving nothing but a black stain behind (a move which was blatantly stolen by Takashi Shimizu in "Ju-On 2"). The supernatural and horror aspects of this movie definitely hit the right notes.
Meanwhile, Ryosuke is nothing less than a summation of the fads of modern humanity. When we are introduced to the character, he is not particularly well-versed in computers, but wants to get in on this thing called the internet because everybody else is doing it. We follow Ryosuke, a college student, as he witnesses several terrifying images while surfing the world wide web, and just like Michi, watches all of his internet-addicted buddies fall prey to the epidemic one by one.
It becomes clear fairly early on that "Pulse" is not a movie that seems to be building toward a happy ending, and it's not. "Pulse" is a movie that makes you sad, but in the best possible way. What it DOES build to is a meeting between its two lead characters, and while these two characters have shared virtually nothing until the final scenes of the film, the closing passages of the movie pack unbelievable power because their struggles to come to grips with what is happening in the world around them has been built up so much.
Lesson #1 from the Horror Nerd - the single best thing that any film can do is make you identify with and care for its characters. If you do that, your movie doesn't have to be as original, well-acted, or well-directed, but this movie is all of those things as well. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, adapting and directing this movie based on his own novel, crafts an unbelievable masterpiece with "Pulse" (or "Kairo," as several in the large cult following of this film still exclusively call it), and it is one of the must-see horror movies not only of the decade, but of all time.
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