Pulse

When her boyfriend commits suicide, a young woman (Kristen Bell) suspects that his computer had something to do with it. Wes Craven and Ray Wright’s script is yet another Americanized remake of some incomprehensible Japanese horror movie—in this case, Kairo by one Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Craven should have known better, but no doubt Wright and director Jim Sonzero (both inexperienced) are most to blame; the movie has negligible characters, an incoherent story, no suspense, no thrills—it’s all scare music and spooky images photographed in a lifeless fluorescent blue-black glow. The theme, if there is one, seems to be that our computers, cell phones and pagers are trying to kill us all. Which raises the question: What genius thought a story like this would resonate with teenagers and college students?