Part of Shocktober
One of the greatest, most gripping achievements in Japanese horror, and a dark mirror for our terminally online world. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s shattering masterpiece from 2001 is beyond liminality, beyond dimension, giving us a despair and isolation decades ahead of its time — while still rooting itself in the sound design and dread of David Lynch, along with the emotional high notes of Bernard Hermann’s scores for Hitchcock.
At the turn of the millennium, a group of young people in Tokyo experience an increasing number of missing co-workers, technological breakdown, and a mysterious website which asks: “Do you want to meet a ghost?” After the sudden deaths of several friends, three strangers explore a city that grows more empty by the day — and attempt to solve what lies within a forbidden room in an abandoned construction site, mysteriously sealed shut with red packing tape.
“Fiercely original, thrillingly creepy…. There isn't a single ‘gotcha’ horror-film moment in PULSE, which opened in Japan in 2001. But there are very few moments that don't evoke a dreamlike dread of the truly unknown…. Mr. Kurosawa (no relation to Akira Kurosawa), who also wrote the screenplay, gives J-horror, as this Japanese genre is known, a good name.” —Anita Gates, New York Times “PULSE interprets the end of the world as a gradual decrease in people until one day the streets are desolate and empty….. When Kurosawa finally does cut loose with overt, explosive, fiery violence and carnage, the effect is shocking and devastating.” —Jeremiah Kipp, Slant Magazine
