Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Pulse Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 22, 2017

The best Horror movies usually take something familiar, something that's part of everyday life, something that people take for granted, and make it unnatural, scary, murderous. Sometimes it's something a little more abstract like dreams or the boogeyman and sometimes it's more tangible things like birds or dolls. Pulse falls somewhere in the middle. A film in which the bad guy is essentially a current of electricity means it's abstract in that it's not usually something someone literally sees -- a current running through wherever they happen to be -- but it's not something completely physical or regularly tangible in nature, either. It just sort of is, at least in terms of common perception. Assuming everything is in working order, flip the light switch or start up the microwave and voilà! It's just there. That makes it more unpredictable when it's somehow alive or aware and with a wanton desire to kill, when it courses through the wiring and only the occasional spark or a glow gives its presence away, at least outside of its moments of mayhem. Pulse doesn't accomplish everything it might have with the concept, but it's still a relatively good, mindless movie that, if nothing else, thinks a bit outside of the (electrical) box.

Young David (Joey Lawrence) hails from a broken home. He lives with his mother in Colorado but is visiting his father Bill (Cliff De Young) and stepmother Ellen (Roxanne Hart) in Los Angeles. One night, when Bill and Ellen leave him home alone while they attend a social function, David notices a few odd things, including a screwy signal on the living room television set, interrupting his Dodgers game. He finishes it on the radio but quickly comes to realize that there's something wrong. His father comes home to find him in a panic. His jitters are dismissed, but he becomes more convinced that something's amiss the more he comes to understand local lore. It turns out there is indeed some shocking force at work and it's targeted David's house to carry out its nefarious purpose.

Looking at Pulse in hindsight, it's sort of like the Swiss Army Knife of Techno-Horror films, a jack-of-all-trades that incorporates identifiable bits and pieces viewers will recognize from other films, some of which released prior to Pulse and some that came after. Hints of Shocker, Maximum Overdrive, Poltergeist, and The Ring course through it. There's a lot to like about the concept, and the movie gets a fair bit of it right. But it also gets a fair bit of it wrong, sort of like a beautiful puzzle of cinema terror that's been neatly arranged on the table and more or less sorted and put in order, but rarely connected together. The bigger picture is easy to see, but there are too many gaps that keep it from reaching its full potential.

Pulse's biggest weakness is its pacing. It's a deliberate film, slow and methodical to develop its characters and arc and their intersection. David's exposure to the "pulse" evolves with time, leaving him confused, then uneasy, then afraid, then panicked, then caught in the middle of the maelstrom at the end. The movie is reluctant to turn on any sort of action or mayhem until the end, holding back for a finale that doesn't fizzle, but doesn't sizzle, either. The movie is methodical to a fault, losing momentum and not doing much to regain it prior to the final few minutes. The slow-burn approach isn't inherently bad -- many great Horror films have used it to wonderful effect -- but Pulse, try as it might, can't seem to capture that balance whereby interest is built, maintained, and piqued for the duration. The film is at least lean in runtime even if it occasionally feels longer than it is.

In Pulse, "terror" is the true villain. The "villain" proper is barely seen, and particularly not in any sort of readily identifiable or relatable shape. The scares come from the unknown element and the often clever use of everyday objects around the house as instruments of mayhem. Not all of it makes complete sense -- the audience is asked to suspend disbelief for the majority -- but like the best the genre has to offer, the mystery is as scary as the manifestation, if not scarier. Director Paul Golding (whose only full-length feature directorial credit is Pulse) makes good use of the house, sometimes juxtaposing it with outside transformers, sometimes focusing on some appliance inside (like the television, which is sort of a conduit for it all), and even in some of the interestingly composed close-ups of various circuit boards and wires. The cast plays well against it, though with the expected rhythm where young David can't find anyone to believe his tale of terror until it's too late.

Pulse Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pulse isn't going to win "catalogue transfer of the year" or anything like that, but Mill Creek's 1080p, MPEG-2 encoded presentation more or less satisfies, despite a few warts. Print wear is heaviest during the opening title sequence but settles down to a more manageable smattering of pops and speckles for the duration. The opening and closing nighttime shots are depressingly desaturated and smooth, but the image picks up momentum in all of its brightly lit scenes. Grain hovers and yields a rather pleasant filmic veneer. Detailing is fine. Facial and clothing textures are reliable, but it's in some of the background and environmental textures where the transfer proves most enjoyable. Odds and ends in the bedroom or kitchen look nice but it's in the garage where more diverse textures and various unkempt or grimy surfaces prove nicely revealing. Many of the film's intimate shots of circuits and wires and whatnot are appropriately sharp, too. Color saturation is pleasant beyond those nighttime shots. Natural greens, a flashy sports car, various shades on attire, red blood, and blue electricity bring some spice to the presentation. Flesh tones appear fairly straightforward if not a touch pasty. For a budget catalogue release of a nearly 30-year-old film, there's not a ton of room for complaint.

Pulse Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pulse features an LPCM 2.0 uncompressed soundtrack. It's fairly impressive for what it is and with its channel limitations. The 80s style electronic music track to open is a little sharp, but the track seems faithful to the sound design. Musical width along the front is impressive, and the track proves ever willing and able to push the front stage's boundaries. Various industrial and electrical sounds creep and flow along the front near film's start to positive effect. There's a strong, weighty whirring sound when a garbage disposal is flipped on, the sound startling David and reinforcing a story he had heard from one of his friends. Some of the wavy in-and-out sounds the "malfunctioning" TV makes are impressively detailed and spaced. A ringing phone offers a piercing charge into the soundstage. Some of the most boisterous effects come at the climax and are forceful enough to fool the listener into believing the track is playing with some level of surround depth. Dialogue is clear and presents with a naturally center-imaged presence.

Pulse Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Pulse contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen offers only "Play" and "Subtitles On / Off" buttons.

Pulse Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pulse isn't "pulse-pounding!" or any of those other excited quote fodder lines that would have worked exceedingly well with this title. It's just a midlevel Horror picture that's more concept than execution, more an interesting (in hindsight) mishmash of ideas that can be seen in other films, some that would release before it, some that would come after. Its pacing is sluggish but there are some interesting hints throughout that do just enough to keep the audience interested, not necessarily involved, until the end. Mill Creek's Blu-ray contains no supplemental content, but the video and audio presentations are fine for the product, which at time of writing is selling for around $5-$7 new. Recommended at that price.