In the late 1990s, Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa made a name for himself on the festival circuit as a maker of smart, slightly obscure, but critically successful horror films. In 1998, Ring opened in Japan and was a colossal success, lighting a big fire under the already-smoldering ?J-Horror? boom. Not long after, Kurosawa decided to do his own ?black-haired ghost? movie about alienation and modern technology and wrote an original screenplay called Kairo (the Ring films were based on a series of popular novels). Kairo ? Pulse in English ? came out in early 2001 and was another hit for Kurosawa; like many foreign genre films that show any sign of success, its U.S. rights were picked up by Miramax / Dimension, who also grabbed the remake rights, and news went out that high-profile horror auteur Wes Craven was attached to the project, set to be shot in 2002.

At some point between this announcement and the start of shooting, however, Dimension head Bob Weinstein pulled the plug on the project, having decided that J-horror remakes were no longer a hot property; Craven moved on to the werewolf saga Cursed, which is another long, sad story. In the meantime, the Dreamworks-produced Ring remake opened in late 2002 and went on to gross well over $100 million at the box office. Can you guess what happened next? The Pulse remake went back into development with another director (first-timer Jim Sonzero), though not without a further series of twists and turns, involving continual re-writes (lasting through the actual shoot), test screenings, tweaks, re-shoots and a further trimming by the MPA to garner an audience-friendly PG-13 rating.

After a half-dozen announced, then delayed release dates, the Weinstein Co. finally dumped Pulse in late summer 2006, where it did decent initial box office but was critically skewered. It went on to gain a not-so-great $20 million, the director did the requisite-for-Weinstein ?yes, it was a difficult production?no, the re-shooting didn?t bother me?in the end, I?m proud of the final film and look forward to our next project? junket interviews, and Craven was granted an honorific ?screenplay by? co-credit, even though he himself admits that he had nothing to do with the finished film. As for the original? After gathering dust on their crowded shelves for several years, Miramax finally sold off Kairo to Magnolia, who gave it a short theatrical release in late 2005, then debuted it on DVD a full half-year ahead of the remake?s arrival in theaters.

I?ve told you this overly-complicated story in order to pose this question: is it possible for anything of quality to come out of such bald-faced commercialism and corporate machinations, even if the original source and intentions were good? The answer borne out by the recent DVD release of Pulse is a resounding ?Hell, no!? Everything about the film comes off as just plain wrong, and many of the problems are clearly a result of the continuous tinkering the movie underwent throughout its development and release.

TV?s Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell plays Mattie, a college psych major whose boyfriend Josh discovers some sort of dark secret and, after a ridiculous opening shock sequence in the most ominous library since The Ninth Gate, winds up hanging himself. Mattie and her roommate Isabell (pop singer Christina Milian, also a psych student, but costumed like she?s about to appear on the Latin Grammys) team up with a couple of other friends when instant messages from the now-deceased Josh appear on their computers. Josh had apparently stumbled onto something prior to his death which involves the dead ? portrayed here as naked, screaming bald guys ? coming through our innumerable electronic gateways into this world, although that concept isn?t stuck to with such assuredness throughout the film. (For instance, referencing one of the film?s more ?celebrated? shock moments, how many washer/dryers have web or wireless capability?) It all leads to an apocalyptic finale, or at least as apocalyptic as mainstream American films will allow these days, and one that doesn?t make much sense in the end, anyway.

The original Kairo didn?t make sense, either, but at least Kurosawa had successfully created a mood of melancholy and dread throughout the film that gave viewers a subjective, emotional impression even if they couldn?t exactly understand what was unfolding onscreen. Instead, Kurosawa?s theme about most people being so isolated from each other that they?re already effectively dead ? it?s only a very soft push that makes them cross over into the land of shadows ? is completely lost in a jumble of barely-lit spooky scenes and shock sequences either lifted entirely from the original (e.g. the stumbling ghost in the red room, the tower suicide, the plane crash) are conceived with such disregard for the central plot of the film that they?re rendered totally ineffective. Even in the unrated cut presented on the DVD, all the viewer is left with are conventional shaky camera moves, heavy-on-the-atmosphere lighting and loud ?boo!? sound effects, none of which will quicken anybody?s pulse.

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