Pulse 2 Review (2008) Worth Watching?

It's about a guy and his daughter trying to trek through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Pulse 2 was directed by Joel Soisson (who also directed Children Of The Corn: Genesis andThe Prophecy: Forsaken) and stars Jamie Bamber (from The Car: Road To Revenge and Ghost Rig), Georgina Rylance (fromThe Prophecy: Uprising and Hellraiser: Deader) and Karley Scott Collins (from The Collector and Pulse 3).

Pulse 2: Afterlife is the sequel to the reboot of the original Japanese Pulse. The Pulse reboot from 2006 followed the story of the original fairly closely, but changed one significant detail. Instead of red tape being used to keep internet ghosts inside a room, the red tape is now used to keep ghosts outside any room. This change served two purposes. One, it avoided the glaring plot holes that pulled down the original (why were the ghosts in specific rooms and who taped them in) and two, it expanded the limitations of the original story. In the original, once someone opened up a sealed room the ghosts got out and it was game over. There was no way to escape them and mankind was eventually wiped out. In the reboot, people could tape themselves into rooms for protection. And now in Pulse 2, they expanded on this concept even more.

The movie starts with a guy walking down the street completely surrounded by ghosts, but also invisible to them. He's invisible because he's draped in red and wrapped up in red tape. He took the concept of red tape protecting a room to red tape protecting himself. By being able to safely walk around we're able to see how many ghosts are just wandering around aimlessly looking for a new victim, any new victim. It's kind of like a zombie apocalypse movie in this way. As he's walking around he comes across a dad and a little girl driving in a truck. He forces them to steal some super-specific electrical device from a store and then takes off. The rest of the movie is about the dad and his daughter (and the dad's wife) (and the dad's girlfriend) trying to survive the internet ghost apocalypse.

So here's the deal with Pulse 2. I knew this was going to be a generic cheesy B-horror going in. The original Pulse was amazing and the remake was way better than it should have been. There's no way this direct-to-forgotten-video sequel was going to be able to pull this off again. I knew this going in and was actually looking forward to it. Sometimes low budget cheesy horror is the best horror and I was ready to have fun with it, popcorn and beer in hand.

Turns out it was the other kind of cheesy low budget horror, the kind that actually tries to be serious. Instead of going the cheesy horror direction they went the cheesy drama direction. Sure there were ghosts and stuff, but there was way more dad, dead wife, new girlfriend, daughter drama. It was basically the b-movie version of Cargo.

And when I say B-movie, holy hell is it B. Pulse 2 is crazy low budget. I've never seen a green screen used more in a horror movie in my life. It uses green screens for practically everything. Almost every background including simple rooms and empty streets are green screened. It feels like the entire movie was shot in someone's crappy apartment.

Of course like most movies there's some redeeming parts. For example there was a disturbing man-on-ghost sex scene and a pretty gory eyeball stabbing scene. And the special effects near the end were decent. The acting sucked but the story was good, no plot holes, some suspense. But it mostly sucked.