Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Milan, Samm Levine, Rick Gonzalez
Directed by Jim Sonzero
Rated PG-13
3 Pulses

A group of college students are shocked when a friend commits suicide. The young man’s girlfriend, Mattie (Bell), is not convinced he acted out of depression. When she tracks down Dexter McCarthy, who bought her boyfriend’s computer post-mortem, strange and scary things come to light. As an epidemic of suicides and disappearances sweep the city and spread outward to the world, Dexter and Mattie rush to solve the puzzle.

Beginning as a seeming teenie-bopper horror, Pulse develops into something dark and apocalyptic. It is probably safe to assume that the teenie-bopper aspect can be attributed to Wes Craven’s contribution to the screenplay, while the more serious implications belong to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the writer and director of the 2001 original Japanese version Kairo.

The main problem here is that these two markedly different approaches don’t mesh, and throwing attractive young and inexperienced actors at it doesn’t help the matter. For the first half of the film you feel you know where it’s going; sexy strangers Mattie and Dexter are going to save the day and fall in love. However, in the last half-hour of the film, they try to throw a curve ball with them not saving the day, but riding off into the sunset together, nevertheless.

There are a great many things that are simply unbelievable about this film, not the least of which is the extremely late reaction to the disappearance of 90 percent of the population on the part of the news networks and the government.

On the other hand, there are some fantastically chilling scenes here. Although the monsters aren’t very scary, images of the dead and dying which appear in real life and on computer screens are unnerving.

Pulse may not be the perfection of what was intended, but as director Sonzero’s second big project, it may be safe to assume that time and experience will mature him into a director that can be counted on in the future.