Pulse (Kairo) -- 2001 -- R

This is the Japanese version of the film that has been remade into an American version and I'm not sure if its out yet or not.

I was rather concerned early on when we were going through mundane tasks such as installing an internet browser complete with entering the serial number in that this movie might run a bit slow. Well, it was definitely a slow burning fuse and a very cerebral flick, as a lot of Japanese horror tends to be.

We get introduced to two people and their immediate cirlce of friends. One is a girl working in a plant shop who has a friend with a side job of programming or something. She goes to his place to get a disk, and he hangs himself just before disappearing into a moldy spot on the wall.

The other is a economics student who installs the internet for the first time (hooray, dial-up!) and is immediately logged onto a video site promising to interact with the dead. This site figures somewhat prominently into the backdrop of this weird plot and multiple videos of the dead are displayed depending on how many monitors they happen to have. Of course, this flips out the student guy, and he usually turns off his computer after a few minutes.

The plant girl slowly loses her friends to their own moldy spots on the walls after they enter a forbidden room, which is a room that has been sealed off by red tape. Anyone who goes into this room and interacts with a ghost will become a moldy spot. The student guy has the same experience, but he befriendsa computer girl who tries to help, but ends up being sucked into the ghostly world via the dead video sites, which apparently have much the same effect as the forbidden room.

Getting lost? Well, it does its best to keep the film moving along despite the relative confusion. We do eventually get a decent explanation of what's going on and it slowly affects everyone in the world until student guy and plant girl are the only ones left and they meet up. Student guy looks for computer girl and in a fit of total randomness,they decide she must be in an abandoned factory. ?!

But here's the part that really gets me. Once the two main characters hook up and go off gallavanting together to find all the answers, they split up on several occasions. "Wait here. I'll be right back." No no no no no no no! You're in situations where sticking together keeps each one of you safe from the freaky stuff going on. If I never hear the phrase, "Let's split up," in a horror movie again, I'll die a happy man.

Of course they find her there, and she reenacts one of the things we saw earlier on the video site. It's Japanese horror, so it's no secret that everyone is totally screwed so it's not much of a spoiler to say it doesn't work out too well for anyone here.

The main pair of characters are pretty well developed through their interactions with their friends, and their friends get developed both before and after they die...or rather, become moldy spots.

In all honesty, the film does build a really creepy atmosphere, and while it's not a scary film, like a lot of Japanese horror, you're bound to be at least a little creeped out by the goings on in this one.