Pulse

Ziycon

Has anyone seen this movie, it looks very good, what do people think about the topics that it covers?

Sapien

Ziycon wrote:

Has anyone seen this movie, it looks very good, what do people think about the topics that it covers?

Ian Somerhalder is in it. Even if it opens with the line "There are places where evil lives...", I shall be buying a ticket.

6th

Thought maybe a link to the trailer might help:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/pulse/

monkeyfudge

I seen the Japanese original years ago... I'm pretty sure they've changed it a lot.

It was allegorical for a problem in Japan called hikikomori where young people just lock themselves in their rooms and never come out.

It's probably worth your while seeing the original before the US version.

Somerhalder? He was in Smallville, wasn't he?

Sapien

monkeyfudge wrote:

Somerhalder? He was in Smallville, wasn't he?

Yes. He makes Tom Welling look like a bludgeoned tramp.

Zombrex

Ziycon wrote:

Has anyone seen this movie, it looks very good, what do people think about the topics that it covers?

The central idea seems to be that a group of internet researchers discover a set of frequenceis "no one knew existed", that some how has opened a gateway for the dead to enter our world.

Not quite sure how that would work, its like claiming I have discovered a number between 1 and infinity no one knew existed. By definition people know it exists, because the set it belongs to has been defined already.

So the rationale behind how this would happen seems a little shaky. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know did they mean they have started sending voltage down at one of these super high or super low frequencies, as that would provide a somewhat more plausable explination that simple dicovering a frequency

As monkeyfudge said it is a remake of a Japanise horror movie Kairo, which only used the paranormal horror idea to explore the idea of isolation due to increasing technological advances, and the phenomona of hikikomori due to this isolation. It was also meant to display death as a lonely unsettling experience, in an effort to disade young Japanise from commiting sucide. I am not aware of the original version being based on any actual tales of these event happening.

The hollywood version has been panned for plot holes and inconsistencies, and for mostly abandoning any of the social commentory and exploration found in the original.

On the plus side it has Kristen Bell running around a lot.

monkeyfudge

What was great about the original was how near the begining of the film you have normal street scenes and restaurant scenes etc. with lots of people walking about in the background... but as the film progresses there are less and less people in the background of scenes and it makes for a very unsettling effect.

There is also a completely unexpected suicide scene that takes place in the background that you only really notice happening when it's too late.

humanji

The original is great. As usual, the remake is rubbish. It basically glosses over the main themes that the original was exploring.

As for the idea of frequencies, isn't that similar to the whole "White Noise" thing where people claim to be able to hear the dead through static (and they also made a film of that too )? I guess for those who believe that spirits have an electrical or magnetic aspect to them, then it makes perfect sense that they can possibly interact on some level through technology.