The apocalypse has gone low-scale and high-tech. Pulse is the latest Japanese export to be remade in the Hollywood tradition. There has been a big outcry against remakes in general of late, yet they still manage to make decent money, and as long as this is true, they will continue to be made. Remakes and reimaginings are nothing new to filmmaking; there have been remakes for as nearly as long as there have been films.

Is Pulse scary? Depends on what your looking for. If you are a big fan of the jump scare type films, you will be disappointed, likewise if you are looking for gore, you'd best look elsewhere. What this film does succeed at is creating an atmosphere; there are a few jump scare moments, but they aren't terribly frightening. The story centers on our overreliance on technology and the possible consequences therein. The film is more frightening in the build-up and the implications than anything that is overtly displayed. Although, I have to admit not truly understanding the reasons behind the virus/dead people.

Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Spartan) stars as Mattie, a college student whose boyfriend commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Shortly after his demise, Mattie and her friends start to receive messages from the deceased. Mattie starts to look into the case, discovering, with the help of Dexter (Ian Somerhalder), that the cause appears to be a computer-born virus. What is this virus? Are the messengers actually dead people or is it actually a techno-virus taking the form of ghostly apparitions?

As the story progresses, the story background becomes more epic, even while it remains the more personal horror of one young woman. Mattie's friends are dying all around her, and her desire to survive and stop the horror increases, while news reports indicate that it is spreading beyond her college town. People all over the country are dying, radiating outward from her school. This epic nature becomes even more evident late in the film as they roam the empty streets. This is all building to a conclusion that I will let you discover for yourself.

I admit, this is not a great film, and in many eyes it may not even be a good one. There are a variety of characters who have brief appearances with no explanation of why they are there or what their specific roles are. For example, there is a doctor played by Ron Rifkin who has a couple of scenes that Bell's Mattie bounces thoughts off of, but his relationship to events is unclear, and his possible demise glossed over, I guess to just get him off the screen. Then there is the still unclear, but clearly strained, relationship between Mattie and her mother, glimpsed at in a couple of phone messages. Others float in and out of the periphery as well.