Pulse 2: Afterlife (2008)

The Worst Film Ever

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

So the apocalypse has been brought forth by ghosts who want to suck the lifeforce out of the living (as the first film sets things up). That's a pretty neat concept for any horror movie. Except, in "Pulse 2" not too much is done with it. Instead the story focuses on a divorced man trying to protect his daughter from his ghostly ex-wife, trying to get her hands on her. It's applaudable that the scripts takes different routes, presenting us new protagonists (instead of trying nothing new by whooping up another bunch of teenagers), but it hardly makes up for an exciting movie. The plot is oddly structured too, as the first act exists solely to lead the viewer up the wrong garden (after about half an hour, it gets clear who the real protagonists are). There are a few entertaining moments - like the scene with the naked woman half melted into a black goo on the floor - but they remain nothing more than just moments. The story is pretty thin and the ghostly images are severely underwhelming. Nothing ever gets scary in this film. And what on earth was up with all those obvious green screen effects? A lot of backdrops were used for both exteriors and interiors (the sequences in the cabin were just a bit too much of all this). On the one hand it created a weird look & feel for the film, but on the other hand it's just too distracting for the viewer (I spent most of the running time figuring out how they composed all those shots, instead of getting involved with the story, acting, etc). So, "Pulse 2" turned out a strange viewing experience: interesting from a technical point of view and a bit offbeat in some ways, but way too average and unconvincing as a scary movie. Still, it's good the producers didn't go flat-out for what could be expected in a nowadays sequel. "Pulse 2" turned out something 'different', and while not all of it works like it should, it's not as bad as most people claim it is.

PLOT OUTLINE: The world has been invaded by ghosts who enter this realm through computers & cell phones. Michelle Kramer, a single mother who lost custody of her daughter Justine to her unfaithful husband, goes out on the streets looking for her, only to find that the child is actually with her father. Michelle, who is unaware that she is actually dead, tries to get her daughter back while her ex-husband does his best to save the child from her.PULSE was one of a spate of horror films made in Japan during the boom of the late-90s / early 00s. This particular film was the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a filmmaker who was not unlike David Lynch, with his work being almost universally hard to follow due to having murky impenetrable plots. That said, Pulse was the greatest success that Kurosawa ever had, probably due to the strong atmosphere that he had invested in the film. The execs at Hollywood made the decision to conduct a remake. This remake was strictly a mediocre affair, the only good thing it did was having explained all the plot dead-ends that the original failed to do.While it was a rather dull remake, the film only just made its money back, prompting the execs at Dimension Studios to greenlight not one but TWO sequels, of which Pulse 2: Afterlife and Invasion was the first. The man responsible for making the film was Joel Soisson, a director who is known in the industry as a 'hatchet man'; his career consisting of stepping in to finish other people's films & making cheap sequels to genre films.With Pulse 2, Soisson figured that the few fans the remake had would be already familiar with the concept, so he decided not to invest any energy in re-establishing the concept, instead hitting the ground running.The first thing you'd notice about this film is the fact that the film suffers from a very poorly written script. You'd think that having spent close to twenty years in the B-movie gutter would make Soisson a good filmmaker. He does have good experience. But the fact is, Soisson is quite a bad director & even worse writer. The script he delivers for Pulse 2 is written according to cliché & has some absurd characterisations. The female characters here are so badly drawn that the viewer is left groaning. Georgina Rylance, who plays the mother, delivers her shrill characterisation with a completely flat performance that becomes the source of unintentional laughter. The 'surprise' revelation that she is actually a ghost is telegraphed miles in advance & only serves to make the viewer groan in disbelief. As for the rest of the cast, only the male actors manage to give good performances, most notably Jamie Bamber, who plays the father. Bamber is the only actor who gives us reason to feel sympathy for him.Acting & script aside, what really sinks the film is the rampant overuse of digital effects. Most of the background shots & sets consist of still images digitally inserted into the film, the actors doing their thing in front of a green screen. This unimaginative use of CGI is pointless to say the least & reeks of lazy filmmaking. The sets are not the only victims of digitalis imageris insertis – the ghosts themselves look like they were taken from a video game!Another flaw with Soisson's approach is the way he mounts the shocks. The set-pieces – Rylance's uncle covering himself with dead cat entrails; a fat man stripped down to his underwear jumping off a bridge; a gas station attendant pouring petrol all over himself; a man having sex with a partially-disintegrated Boti Bliss – are not only lousy, they veer into bad taste.

Well here is the sequel to the remake of the korean movie Kairo. As if the first one was bad enough dimension went on to make two more pulse films DTV. Lets first look at the positives the story sounds good and promising it takes off where the first one left off (except with nobody from the first one) the dead have found a way back to our world- through cell phones and WiFi- and the human survivors have take to remote ares to escape, when a young girl ends up missing, both her mom and dad cross the infected city in search of her. It also has a great start with the red man (this guy wearing all red to keep the ghosts from getting him)walking out of his apartment through an ally to the street you see some of the few ghosts and near dead people that this movie has to offer, then its gets slowwwwwwwwwwwwww........ yeah very slow and one of the most irritating things about this movie other than the acting, and lack of common sense the characters have the CGI o my goodness were they really serious like this looks just fine? I continue to ask myself in disbelief cause of how much this makes my head hurt is how did they even this this would be OK i'd say about 80+% percent of the screen time is green screened, i mean even the backyard scene was cgi the trees all of the area and walking through the house all fake and its so obvious. There is nudity if it matters to you I mean the chick is OK she has a nice body but its got the black stuff anyways so it gets gross very quickly. Thats about it cause this movie is just plain boring it has a lot going for it but falls flat on its face terrible terrible movie i don't recommend it even if you liked the first one this movie is terrible. And as far as the third one goes i have not seen it yet i probably will just because i am the type of guy to finish what he starts. And i bet there will be a 4th and 5th this series isn't over yet

Even though I liked the film, I can see why Pulse 2 got slammed by a lot of horror reviewers. OK, it's more of a drama than a horror film. And the ghosts aren't all that scary. But there's more going on here than just your average ghoul chase. You have real people with real flaws and yearnings that go beyond life and death. There's a reason why you feel an odd disconnect with this film -- largely due to the unorthodox use of green screen -- but the technique succeeds for that very reason. You feel out of place, just like the dead and dying. Admittedly, the green screen style works less well when dealing with "normal" situations and settings like the cabin retreat. Then it comes off as mildly irritating. And another complaint is that the guy in the red suit is a character that doesn't pay off, at least not, I guess, until the next sequel. But all in all, I found this film most rewarding in ways horror films are not meant to be. Which means you can like it or hate it for the very same reasons. I'll stick it in the plus column. Watch it without expectations.