Pulse: Another Horror Film That'll Make You Sigh

I must admit that I was pretty psyched when I saw the advertisements for Pulse. I was hoping it'd be better than The Ring and The Grudge remakes, which were okay but could have been scarier. Unfortunately, when I actually saw Pulse, I gave up on all hopes that Hollywood would ever adapt a foreign horror film good enough to match the original.

It was just terrible.

Maybe it was because Wes Craven wrote the screenplay for this remake. Who knows? (Although I'm willing to bet my money on that - he has too much of a tendency to insert comedic moments that ruin the serious setting.) Either way, there were moments when people laughed. You know something's wrong when that happens and it wasn't intended. For such a hyped up horror film, it was a bit disappointing. It's no wonder it performed so badly in the box office and was out of the weekly top ten grossing movies by its second weekend.

Once again, my hopes for good Hollywood horror were raised with a surge of adrenaline, and then abruptly dashed back down to that empty void of a black hole, whose only emission is that of a single sigh.

If you really want a good horror movie to wreck your nerves, don't waste your money on remakes and check out the originals. They're not as shocking visually as some of the American ones, but they're frightening in the sense that they're conceptually disturbing. I just think that the Hollywood versions are paying too much attention to the single jump-out-of-your-seat moments than the overall, gruesome story. Sure, for those brief seconds, the audience is terrified.

Perhaps they may even be tense throughout the entire feature. But it's the originals that are made in such a way that once you leave the theater, you'll continue to think about the plot and all the little things that were just plain disturbing. Personally, I think that's a much more effective horror film than simply utilizing excessive special effects to create disgusting images. For example, just check out the ending of Ringu (Japanese original of The Ring) after the mother realizes how to prevent her kid from dying.

Yeah, it doesn't roll the credits just yet, until she makes one more phone call.

While you're at it, check out some other foreign horror films out there. A Tale of Two Sisters, a high-grossing Korean horror flick, wasn't bad. The Asian collaborative horror piece, called Three, is also good. And if you liked that, you should also check out the follow-up, Three... Extremes. Rent the DVD if you can find it, turn off the lights in your room, and watch it alone. Somehow, horror movies seem to be more effective when there's noone else around (unlike in a theater). Of course, I'm only hitting the tip of the iceberg. There are many other equally disturbing films out there.

Like Uzumaki.

I never knew a movie about spirals could be so messed up.