Set in today's smoggy, crowded, gritty Tokyo, it begins with a circle of handsome young people affiliated with a greenhouse or, in a couple of cases, a university. The characters don't try to figure out what's going on - as if logic is worthless against the plague it documents - no one consults civil authorities, and by the time the hero notices the world is dying, the world is dead. In "Pulse" eerie happenings take people down, one by one by 4 billion, and the focus slides from victim to victim. In Western horror, there's usually an investigator of some sort, who's trying to get to the bottom of something. It never really explains itself - although there is a theory under its madness - and proceeds visually rather than logically. It's almost completely without gore (two gun suicides, though bloodless, are difficult to watch) but it builds toward a mood of high creepiness.Īt the same time, "Pulse" either makes no sense whatsoever or perfect sense. The filmmaking is low-tech but weirdly effective, using low-cost techniques (a blurring of faces, a few digital paintings of smoke columns) to unsettle the heck out of you. In the end, the ship of state and civilization sails onward quite literally with a crew of one. You never thought you'd be disoriented by watching someone walk funny with a plastic bag over his head? Guess again. It conjures up an atmosphere of hopeless dread out of the most banal of elements. In fact, since it predates the original Japanese versions of "Grudge" as well as "The Ring" and "Dark Water," many believe that it set off the wave of J-horror, as the genre is called, and also that its release now - after its imitators - somewhat diminishes its impact, as many of the tropes it invented have become standard in both Japanese and American horror films.
The Japanese horror film is another example of a now familiar pattern though it was made back in 2001, it's getting a theatrical release now - just like "The Grudge" - to anticipate an American remake next year, presumably on a bigger budget with flashier stars and big-studio marketing oomph behind it.
In it, we perish with neither bang nor whimper, but with the faint crackle of interference over a computer speaker.
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"Pulse," by the Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, best known for a frightener called "Cure," is probably the quietest end-of-the-world movie ever made.