Rent Pulse (2001)

Ghosts in the Machine - Pulse review by griggs

Few horror films make loneliness feel this creepy. Pulse takes the cursed technology idea made famous by Ring and gives it a millennial twist — trading videotapes for haunted websites and webcams. Released at the dawn of the broadband age, Pulse turns early internet anxiety into a ghost story about modern isolation. It’s the kind of film that makes you want to unplug your router and open a window, just to let the ghosts out.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa builds tension through silence and stillness rather than jump scares. Grainy screens, flickering lights, and figures caught half in shadow do most of the heavy lifting. It’s eerie, slow-burning stuff — the kind that seeps under your skin rather than leaps at you.

The final stretch gets a bit airy and philosophical, but it still works. Pulse isn’t about scares so much as sadness — a ghost story about isolation in a world that’s supposedly more connected than ever.

Really creepy... but flawed. - Pulse review by MN

Without spoiling too much, I'd just say that the first 2/3rds of this film is an extremely creepy low-key horror film and at points I found it hard to keep watching because of the deeply insidious nature of it. If you know any of K. Kurosawa's work, you'll know he tends toward a more existential and slow-burning take on things and this is no different. There are no jump scares or action sequences, just a very unsettling atmosphere with a few terrifying moments.

That said, like many of his flims, it becomes completely ridiculous in its final third and that somewhat spoils it. Even so, I'd still rate this up there with the finest J-Horror films of its era.

Beautifully creepy. - Pulse review by CP Customer

Pulse has to be one of the most captivating supernatural horror films I have seen for a long while. While the main plot of 'Pulse' revolves around a group of young friends investigating another friends death, the underlying theme of the film revolves around the idea that is that after death there is no heaven, no hell, just a miserable eternity of living within an altered state of total isolation. Like a lot of Asian horror 'Pulse' is pretty slow paced, there's absolutely no gore and instead the horror relies on a slow build up of anxiety and trepidation. The look of the film is superb, dark skies, deserted streets, crawling shadows and a haunting soundtrack adds to the menacing atmosphere. A must see for fans of Asian horror.