Pulse: A Lonely, Traumatic, Dead Internet

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard!

Kathryn joins Melvin to discuss our Patreon Selected film, Pulse! This early 2000’s Japanese horror film explores isolation, death, and human relationships amidst the infancy of an internet age, and the two dissect what makes the film so dense, so unsettling, and so predictive about internet technology.

Topics:

• (PATREON EXCLUSIVE) 27-minutes playing Sloppy Synopsis Movie Edition, a game where-in one person describes a film poorly and the other guess which movie it is! Play along with Kathryn and Melvin and see how many films you guess right! (PATREON EXCLUSIVE)
• Pulse is eerie and spooky as opposed to shocking and violent.
• Pulse has been celebrated as being predictive in how it explores the internet and its effects on relationships and the individual, as well as a “safe” window into curiosities.
• Melvin thinks Pulse would work perfectly as a double-feature alongside The Last Broadcast, as both films are oddly predictive in how they understand media in an internet age a decade before the explosive growth of social media and smart phones.
• Kathryn and Melvin are very much a part of the generation that grew up with unfettered, unfiltered internet access. In this way, the two deeply resonated with a lot of what the film explores.
• Pulse is the kind of movie that proposes all kinds of different reads and understandings. You can interpret so much from this film.
• Discussing the apocalyptic ending.
• Melvin, “It’s barely even “man” that has killed each other. It is, like, the technology that is put in their hands that is killing themselves.”

Recommendations:

• Destined for Glory: The Meaning of Suffering by Margaret Clarkson (1983) (Book)
• Pick a country that is not the U.S. (or English speaking) and watch their movies.

Pulse is Rated R for some violent images. It features Haruhiko Katô, Kumiko Asô, Koyuki, Kurume Arisaka, Masatoshi Matsuo, and Shinji Takeda. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Pulse is available here.

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Melvin Benson is the Founder, Editor-In-Chief, and Lead Host of Cinematic Doctrine. Whether it’s a movie, show, game, comic, or novel, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s rich, he’s ready and willing to give it a try! His hope is to see King Jesus glorified as far as the east is from the west!

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