If you’ve ever stared at your laptop at 3 a.m., watching the spinning wheel of doom while wondering if your soul has already departed your body, congratulations: you’ve basically experienced Pulse without subtitles. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 techno-horror cult classic is revered in cinephile circles for its atmosphere and existential dread. Me? I think it’s a two-hour TED Talk on loneliness where the guest speaker is a dial-up modem.
The Internet: Now with Extra Ghosts
The premise sounds fun on paper: ghosts invade the human world through the Internet. That’s right—somewhere between a Geocities page and a porn pop-up, the afterlife decided to slide into your DMs. Forget Ouija boards; all you need is a shady ISP and a CRT monitor that weighs more than a Honda Civic.
But instead of going full gonzo with, say, haunted chat rooms or a ghost that spams you with “u up?” messages at midnight, Pulse moves at the pace of a buffering RealPlayer video. By the end, you’re not sure if you’ve been haunted or just watched your own soul slowly die of boredom.
Meet the Cast: Loneliness, Nihilism, and Beige
We’ve got Michi, who works at a plant shop and is so perpetually confused she looks like she wandered into the wrong movie. Then there’s Ryosuke, a college student who signs up for Internet service and somehow unleashes the apocalypse. Imagine being that guy—thinking you’re getting Napster but instead downloading existential despair.
And Harue, the computer science student, who spends most of her time muttering about loneliness until she eventually embraces a ghost like it’s a Tinder date gone horribly wrong. Her storyline ends with her putting a bag over her head and saying she’s “not alone” anymore. Yeah, nothing says “life goals” like finding your forever ghoul.
Forbidden Rooms, Now With Red Tape
Let’s talk about those “forbidden rooms.” In this movie, doors sealed with red tape are like “Do Not Disturb” signs for the afterlife. Characters see them and immediately go, “Huh, better open that.” Because if horror has taught us anything, it’s that curiosity kills not just the cat but also the entire human race.
Inside these rooms, you don’t get jump scares or elaborate death scenes. No, you get stains. Black stains. Characters just… fade into walls like expired Snapchat filters. It’s horror by way of spilled coffee.
Ghosts with Dial-Up Energy
The ghosts themselves are less scary than they are awkward. They shuffle toward you with all the menace of someone late for a Zoom meeting. Some stare blankly at the camera, some do interpretive dance in the shadows, and one appears on a computer screen like an early YouTube vlog. If this is the face of eternal loneliness, I’ll take my chances at the DMV.
And let’s be real: if the dead are using the Internet to reach us, they probably quit halfway because of lag. Imagine a ghost trying to haunt you but getting stuck in a loading loop. Terrifying.
The Apocalypse, But Make It Slow and Sad
Eventually, Tokyo turns into a ghost-infested wasteland. Not with riots or mass hysteria—just… people vanishing one by one. Entire cityscapes go quiet. It’s less end of the world and more Tuesday during a COVID lockdown.
The survivors get on a boat, sailing off while the captain mutters pseudo-philosophy about loneliness. It’s supposed to be profound, but it feels like the world’s worst cruise commercial. “Come sail with us: no entertainment, no amenities, just crippling existential dread!”
The Real Horror: Your Internet History
Here’s the thing: Pulse isn’t scary because of ghosts. It’s scary because it mirrors the feeling of logging onto the Internet and realizing you’ve wasted your life. Kurosawa uses endless shots of empty hallways, muted colors, and dial-up sounds to hammer home that we’re all doomed to die alone while staring at a screen.
That’s deep, sure. But it also makes for the cinematic equivalent of staring at your Windows 98 screensaver for two hours. You keep waiting for something to happen, but the only thing happening is your increasing urge to check your email.
The Characters: Professional Wallflowers
Michi spends the movie running around looking bewildered, like she’s permanently trapped in an IKEA maze. Ryosuke starts out as the comic relief—screaming at his computer like your dad discovering incognito mode—before slowly deflating into another vessel for despair. Harue, as mentioned, goes from techie to ghost-girlfriend in record time.
And the supporting characters? They exist only to vanish into stains. There’s more character development in a Scooby-Doo extra than in half this cast.
Artsy or Just Empty?
Fans will tell you that Pulse is a masterpiece of atmosphere, an existential exploration of loneliness in the digital age. I’ll tell you it’s a really expensive PSA for turning off your modem. The long silences, the drained color palette, the endless shots of people staring at screens—it’s supposed to unsettle you. Instead, it feels like homework assigned by a philosophy professor who really wants you to know he’s sad.
By the Numbers
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Jump scares: 0.5 (if you count a ghost tripping on its way across the room)
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Stains on walls: 47 (rough estimate; may include actual coffee spills on the film print)
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Creepy websites visited: At least three, all less terrifying than MySpace.
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Times someone says “help me”: Enough to make you want to switch careers to ghost therapist.
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Actual scares: Depends on how scary you find Windows XP.
Final Thoughts
Pulse (2001) wants to be the grand statement on technology, loneliness, and the inevitability of death. And in a way, it succeeds—watching it feels like you’ve been ghosted by cinema itself. It’s a slow, haunting meditation on emptiness that will either change your life or make you wish you’d just watched The Ring again.
For every critic who calls it brilliant, there’s a guy like me, staring at the credits wondering if the true ghost was the last two hours of my life.
