pulse Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Well, I guess there were only so many ghost stories out there that revolved around 'creepy little kids', so it was about time that Hideo Nakata started to look elsewhere for thrills. Variety reports that Nakata will be embarking on his second English-language feature (after The Ring 2) with the psychological thriller Chatroom. So before you ask, no, this will not be a technophobe thriller along the lines of Pulse or One Missed Call. So breathe a big sigh of relief, because if there is one thing that I think this world could do without, it is a horror movie about a killer chatroom.

Chatroom centers on six teenagers who become involved in an online chatroom that encourages its members to engage in destructive and suicidal behaviors out in the 'real world'. The film is based on the 2005 play of the same name by Enda Walsh and Walsh will be adapting his own play for the big screen. Walsh won the Cannes Camera d'Or back in 2001, so at least the guy knows his way around a screenplay.

So while it would seem that Chatroom is a little outside of Nakata's usual 'supernatural stomping grounds', it doesn't look like that has been keeping anyone up at night. WestEnd Films' (who is in charge of selling the property) founder told Variety, "Nakata has come up with something very visual, very conceptual, and situated somewhere between Disturbia and Cube, " -- so I can only assume that Nakata's film is going to work in a few scares with his teen angst. At least the topic of online suicide clubs is something that the native Japanese director is probably pretty familiar with.

Chatroom will begin filming on location in the UK this spring -- hopefully without a waterlogged pre-teen girl in sight.

...and here's where I usually shake my virtual fist at the horror heavens and ask "Why? Holy sweet sausage on rye, WHY the holy hell are they offering up a sequel to Pulse, which is easily one of the lamest of all the very lame J-horror remakes?" (Dramatic pause) "Why?!?"

But I won't. There's obviously some sort of fan-base for this title, because movie studios don't bang out sequels (even DTV sequels) if they don't expect some sort of return on their investment. If we're looking for silver linings, we could note that both White Noise 2 and Wrong Turn 2 were more entertaining than first expected -- but if we choose to go the snarky route we could remind you that the star of Pulse ended up mocking it (to hilarious effect) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall! (Dang that scene made me laugh.)

Written and directed by Joel Soisson, Pulse 2: Afterlife stars Jamie Bamber from Battlestar: Galactica and a whole bunch of actors I've never heard of. (I don't mean that in a nasty way.) I'm assuming the plot has something to do with supernatural technology. Visit Shock for the brand-new cover art, and circle September 30 on your calendar if this is a title you're after. And hey, at least it's not PG-13, right? Matter of fact: Rated R for violence, disturbing images, some sexuality, nudity and language. Already it's better than the first one.

More than once in recent weeks, I've found myself subjected to the bonanza of pre-show 'entertainment' at a local multiplex, the arguable best portion of which has been a fake trailer for a new Sprint phone, a spot unabashedly proud of both spoofing the nature of product placement and succumbing to it.

So when I first heard of a film called Text - about killer text messages - I assumed it was likewise a joke, a hoax, a ruse, a cunning attempt to trick me. I mean, doesn't that sound like the one faux trailer that didn't make it into Grindhouse? Alas, if Fangoria is to be believed, it's no joke...

Certain movies get under my skin and refuse to leave. Case in point: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure and Pulse (AKA Kairo). There are several startling scenes in those movies that left me on edge for days. Both are horror flicks, but differ in their approaches. Cure is a police procedural with an unsettling string of deaths, while Pulse imagines what happens when there is no more room in the spirit realm for dead people. Kurosawa has a gift for creating indelible imagery married to sometimes head-scratching stories. Even when things don't really add up, as in Bright Future, his films leave a distinct aftertaste.

Kurosawa's Retribution, from 2006, hit Region 1 DVD earlier this week, and it's an odd little beast. In the opening scene, a woman in a red dress is brutally drowned by a mysterious man in a shallow pool of salt water on a reclaimed piece of land near the ocean. Kôji Yakusho (Babel, Shall We Dance?) plays Yoshioka, a weary police detective (similar to the one he played in Cure) investigating the case. Before he can get too far, we witness a respected doctor kill his son, for little apparent reason, by the same method. Is the doctor a serial killer? Why are Yoshioka's fingerprints on the first victim's body? Why does Yoshioka start having nightmares about a woman in a red dress?

Deliberately paced, Retribution veers between an effective freak-out and a disappointing, frustrating mystery, but Kurosawa fans may want to check out its low-key artistic despair.

I suspect I may be the only one who gives a rat's keister about this (and even my interest is rather slight), because as far as I can tell I'm the only person who liked the U.S. remake of Pulse, finding it an enjoyable and refreshingly straightforward horror story, as opposed to the obtuse and hard to follow Japanese original. Still, even I fail to see the logic in producing sequels to a film that grossed all of $29 million worldwide. Granted the Pulse sequels are going direct to video, but I just don't see there being a market for it. However, since Dimension Films didn't ask for my opinion, they have released new information about the two proposed direct-to-DVD Pulse followups that Scott first posted about back in February.

Bloody Disgusting is reporting that the sequels will be written and directed by Joel Soisson, who has had writing and/or directing credits on a number of direct-to-DVD horror sequels including Hollow Man 2, Dracula 2000 (and its two sequels), Mimic 2, and several entries in the The Prophecy series; a franchise that had some pretty decent entries early on. This guy's pretty much the sequel king. The films will be called Pulse: Afterlife, which deals with a society that is afraid to use technology for fear of confronting the spirits that escaped into our world in the previous film and Pulse: Invasion, which is about a teenager who flees the safety of a relocation camp to return to the city. You can read the synopses here, although the Afterlife summary is especially vague. The more I read about this project, the further my interest wanes. Fond as I was of Pulse I don't think it merited any kind of sequel, direct-to-DVD or otherwise.

When the fine folks at Dimension Films aren't pulling four-year-old horror flicks out of their vault, remaking the latest Asian horror movies or trimming their terrors down to earn a PG-13 rating ... they do direct-to-video sequels like nobody's business. This is the distributor that kept oozing Hellraiser, Dracula, Crow and Prophecy sequels from every available pore -- not that the horror fans were actually clamoring for those cheap knock-off follow-ups. But with those franchises pretty much exhausted (in more ways than one), it seems that Los Weinsteins are poking around for some newer ones.

According to Moviehole.net, the American remake Pulse is a candidate for the "churn out two" treatment. Unlikely that Kristen Bell will be returning, but word is that two new sequels to Pulse will hit the shelves eventually. The original Americanized Pulse grossed only $20 million domestically (and another $7 million overseas), but why let facts and figures get in the way of your low-end, low-quality DTV slate? Can Cursed 2 and Mindhunters 3 be far behind? (Frankly I find it kind of irritating that these sequels will go into production well before solid flicks like Black Sheep, Teeth and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane hit the screens. C'mon Weinsteins, hook us up!)

In related news, Bloody-Disgusting.com is reporting that the Weinsteins also want to mount a pair of Feast sequels, which I find somewhat hilarious when you consider the ridiculous way in which they handled the original Feast's theatrical release. (Midnight showings for two nights only! Bring your friends!) Feast writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston (who may end up writing Saw 4, don't forget) recently dropped some vague little hints about the pair of sequels, but I'll believe it when I see it. (And considering the Dimension track record, we'll be seeing 'em in about four years.) Still, it's pretty rare to hear multiple-sequel news for a movie that made less than $57,000 at the box office, but Feast is quite the fun little flick. Pulse, on the other hand, is not. Like, at all.

These days, almost every indie actor (or actress) has their own band. On top of that, they also have their own MySpace page or YouTube page that's colorful, creative and has way too much going on. Personally, I don't have a MySpace page (sorry to let my legion of fans down) and cannot stand when someone sends me a link to one because, more often that not, the damn page gives me a headache. So what -- this person has 4,365 friends and likes to bombard us with the colors red, black, purple and orange set against some random image that gets in the way of the text you're (apparently) supposed to read. This should mean what to me, again?

So it's refreshing when an indie actor (or actress) comes along and wants to share their music without shoving it down our throats. Case in point: Gen Art's Pulse recently stumbled across a YouTube page for a user named of wild animals, who apparently turned out to be none other than indie actress Jena Malone (Saved!, Donnie Darko). According to Pulse, Jena spends a lot of her down time at some remote cabin in Tahoe where she likes to create experimental short films and music videos for her band. Yes, they're a little odd (hence the word 'experimental'), but I dig her voice and creativity. If you've got nothing to do tonight, swing on over there and let us know what you think. Jena can next be seen in The Go-Getter which will be screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Beerfest -- Those oh-so-wacky knuckleheads who brought you Super Troopers (yaaaay) and Club Dread (boooo) are back with a beer-soaked semi-sports comedy that celebrates the irreprressable beauty of yeast, malt, barley and fermented hops. (At least I think that's what beer is made of.) Haven't seen the flick yet, but I'm told it's actually pretty darn funny. Extras include two audio commentaries, a handful of featurettes and more than 20 deleted scenes.

How to Eat Fried Worms -- Yet another kid's book turned into a movie that nobody really cared to see. Then again, home video is where titles like this one make their bread and butter anyway. Extras include a director/kid actor commentary, a gag reel ("gag," get it? cuz it's about the eating of worms!), and a handful of featurettes.

Idlewild -- Kim was pretty surprised by how much she liked this flick, but going only by the box office numbers it seems she was most definitely in the minority. The "Outkast musical" was lauded by some and derided by others, but most seem to agree that it sure is ... different! Extras are pretty slim: two deleted scenes and a pair of music videos.

Miami Vice -- I think it's one of the worst movies of the year. Honest. But hey, if your idea of fun is 140 minutes of two preening actors wandering through a plotless and a stunningly generic plot construct, have a ball. Yeah, Michael Mann knows how to swing a camera around the room, but this flick's about as deep and edgy as an episode of Murder She Wrote. (Rant over. Sorry.) Extras include a director's commentary, six featurettes and a 15-minute-longer Director's Cut.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- I can be pretty critical of the Disney output from time to time, but where the Pirates movies are concerned, I'm little more than a hyperactive 8-year-old screaming "Yay, yippee, more!!" And the 2-disc release of DMC is an absolute treasure chest of digital awesomeness. The movie looks and sounds great, the screenwriter's commentary is quite illuminating, and there's more supplemental material to choke a Kraken: Blooper reels, documentaries, featurettes and yes: at least five hidden goodies!

Pulse -- The remake nobody asked for became the movie nobody went to see. I paid to see it only because of my Kristen Bell crush, and while it's certainly not a GOOD movie, I don't think it's as worthless as most PG-13 horror flicks I've seen lately. Extras include two commentaries, three featurettes, some deleted stuff and (of course) an "unrated" cut.

Rocky Anthology -- I'm pretty sure that all the sequels in this new collection are the same DVDs as before, but the original Rocky is given a rather swanky new digital release that should thrill anyone who loves the flick as much as I do. (Available separately) the Rocky 2-disc Collector's Edition comes with three audio commentaries, a half-dozen featurettes / mini-docos and some old-school archival footage that's never been released before. Yo, MGM! Thanks!

It's getting closer to Halloween, and that means scary movies. Of course, I love scary movies and I watch them all year long, but I watch them with a purpose in October. Most critics don't bother with scary movies, or pre-judge them, and that has led to the recent rash of horror films being withheld from the press. It goes without saying, also, that the studios know they're making bad movies by playing it safe with their remakes and sequels, rather than rolling the dice on a new idea. Most of the current horror movies have this in common: they're remakes or sequels, they were withheld from the press, and they flopped.

Hmm. I wonder if this is a pattern that ought to be avoided in the future?

Despite being directed by Neil LaBute -- a filmmaker whose entire reputation was established by critics who singled out his great debut In the Company of Men (1997) -- The Wicker Man remake (233 screens) was withheld from those same critics, and it has officially flopped, returning only $23 million on a $40 million budget.

It's weird to think of almost $20 million as chump change, but that's how the movie game is played. Pulse hasn't set any box office records, having pulled in a mere $19,703,256 as of this past weekend, which is unfortunate for this solid horror film. Kristin Bell (star of TV's Veronica Mars) proves she can carry her own weight in features, and the movie has some great creep-out moments with apocalyptic overtones. Kairo, the Japanese film on which Pulse was based, is a collection of interesting scenes, separated by moments of tedium and all strung together by a narrative that refuses to coalesce. Some may cry "blasphemy" when they read this, but Jim Sonzero's remake clarifies many of Kairo's infuriatingly vague elements, creating a truly rare cinematic phenomenon: a remake that improves upon the original.

The film deserved to do better, but I am confident Pulse will find its audience on DVD. The disk streets on December 5 with a 90-minute unrated cut, 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras will include a commentary track with the filmmakers, deleted scenes, as well as the featurettes Creating The Fear: Making Pulse, The Visual Effects Of Pulse, and Pulse And The Paranormal. There will also be an 87-minute PG-13 version available in fullscreen only.

[via Bloody Disgusting]