Plod

by Noel Vera

Jim Sonzero's "Pulse" (2006) has anything but. Like a number of recent horror remakes--"The Ring," "Dark Water," "The Wicker Man," "The Hill's Have Eyes," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Romero's zombie movies (with his in my opinion masterpiece "Day of the Dead" slated for recycling in 2007)--the content has been updated and the cast prettified but what made the original so memorable has been almost completely deleted, as if by a virus. Not all recycle jobs are so bad--"The Grudge" is pretty much a faithful re-do of Takashi Shimizu's "Ju-on" (but then I didn't like the original much either); "The Ring Two," directed by "Ringu" filmmaker Hideo Nakata (borrowing elements from his own "Dark Water"), is actually more moving than the original sequel--but you get the general idea.

Kurosawa Kyoshi's "Kairo" (Pulse, 2001) was a disturbing film not because of the state-of-the-art digital effects (it had a few, simply done setpieces, and its one large-scale, complex effect (a burning jetliner flying overhead) was actually one of its less effective moments) or gore (it had little to none) but because of the atmosphere of dread and desolation it managed to create. Kyoshi is a master at taking the simplest elements and provoking a disproportionate amount of chills from them--I can't think of anyone else in the world who can generate so much terror out of the darkened corner of a room. He's also a master at withholding clear visual information until your mind is shrieking out loud, demanding a good look (although there does comes a point--it varies from person to person--where matters turn around and you dread actually getting that look). His visual style, the way his camera glides around a given space, puts you on a comfortably lulling ride, coasting past a hundred banal, everyday objects; the hundredth-and-one object, however, will freak you out. You may have not noticed it at all when you first see it, the camera may have already moved past said object, but that's basically the source of his film's power--you've just glimpsed something unsettling, perhaps even horrifying, and you're not quite sure what it is.

But more than the sinuous style, or the hugely effective sound effects (not just creepy sounds or discordant music, but the very silence of his rooms, as if unnamable things were moving about in the next room, doing unnamable acts, but you just…can't…quite…hear…them)--more than all that was his philosophy. I've always argued that the antagonist in "Kyua" (Cure, 1997)--arguably his masterpiece--was not so much a serial killer as he was a missionary, advocating and preaching a new way of seeing the world, and dealing with one's own emotions. "Kairo" puts forth the idea that death and life have no difference at all, that we will be as isolated in our next life as we are in this one. Think about it--it's as bleak a metaphysic as anything you can find this side of Bergman. Bleaker, actually--Bergman in his later works pinned his hopes on pagan, sensual nature; Kyoshi in "Charisma" suggests that nature--in the form of the eponymously named tree--is largely indifferent to humanity's ultimate fate. It's this sensibility, expressed in Kyoshi's unswerving, gradually unveiling shots and accompanied by his muffled, often subterranean sound effects that gives this film such unholy power.

(I go into more detail about Kyoshi's themes and visual strategies in a Senses of Cinema article found here: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/dvd/06/40/pulse-kurosawa-dvd.html)

And the remake? Louder music and sound effects, with a faster, more hysterical camera skittering this way and that. Editing that--as usual--makes hash of what little you've learned of the space in which the scene takes place. Silence doesn't even come into consideration--Sonzero, unlike Kyoshi, is unwilling to make you wait and build your own fears up to an uncomfortable level of tension; he'd rather push his pathetic notions of scary into your face instead.

Sonzero isn't exactly a horror-film veteran (his maiden effort was the 1999 "War of the Angels"--a 27 minute low-budget feature set in World War 2), so not all criticism should be heaped on his inexperienced head (it would help I think if he actually understood the plot and implications of Kyoshi's film (something which wasn't at all apparent in his www.horror.com interview)). A lot of the blame--sorry, credit--probably goes to the script (by Wes Craven, not exactly the most intellectually gifted of American horror filmmakers) which drops the "death equals life" concept and adopts the tired, old "invaders from another world" scenario (which world isn't really made all that clear). The script flips the function of the red tape around: instead of creating a "Forbidden Room" to keep the entities contained, the tape is used here to box people in, which makes even less sense (What's the point of spending the rest of your life in a room sealed with red tape? How are you supposed to eat--order takeout?). Then there's this anti-virus nonsense--is it a law in American horror movies that the characters are supposed to fight back (and when they do fight back, it's usually with some kind of lame-brain idea)? And what's with the ludicrous-looking digitally rendered spirits? In Kyoshi's films they had an otherworldly look, as if accidentally captured in the film negative; in this picture they shriek and pop out of washing machines and chase down cars like a pack of ethereal Chihuahuas.

"Pulse" even has the gall to recreate the original's single most shocking image, of a woman standing atop a high tower--only the remake's tower is much taller, of course (as if more height would add more horror to the moment), and the timing way off (You don't say "Oh, look at th--what did she just do? Why did she do that?" so much as you say "Okay, okay, we know what's going to happen, do it already!"). The reaction is emblematic of the entire picture--instead of being drawn in, wanting to know more the same time you dread to see more, you just sit there slumped in your seat, wishing the whole move would be over. An utter waste of time.

(First published in Businessworld, 10/6/06)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)