Pulse (DVD)

Don't you hate it when your computer contracts a virus? Faster than you can click on ghost.exe, the PC disease in Pulse has wormed its way into a good-looking, ethnically-diverse clique of college students living in Chicago (or is it Cleveland? At any rate, it's really Romania and it looks like it). One of their own, a gloomy gus called Josh (Jonathan Tucker) is the first to fall prey to the siren call of a mysterious website that not only infects his computer, but his immortal soul as well. As his concerned girlfriend Mattie (Kristen Bell) looks on, Josh offs himself and thereby sets she and her friends on a dangerous journey to find out what was really behind his untimely death.

Meanwhile, Josh's money-grubbing landlord sells everything he owned, including that evil computer. A techie/hottie named Dexter (Ian Somerhalder) buys the machine, and unwittingly unleashes the life-leaching ghosts into the world. Naturally Dexter and Mattie find each other, Mattie's cute clique of friends are picked off one by one, the world spirals in apocalyptic ruin, and so on. Rinse, Repeat. (Actually, that reminds me of one of the movie's best, most memorable scenes, which takes place in a laundry room. There are a few good visual sequences in the movie, at least.)

Like its predecessor, Kairo, Pulse is mostly a listless, limp and lethargic frown-fest, where all the characters skulk around in dreary, ugly, gloomy buildings and wax philosophic on the merits of red tape and the dangers of modern technology. However, it is faster-paced than the original, and the actors are much better-looking.

The unrated version of the DVD includes more suicidal PC geeks doing their thing (gunshot to the head, wrist slicing, doing a high-dive without the water, etc.) and, some extra footage of a plane crashing after its computers have gone haywire.

There are two sets of commentaries. One with director Jim Sonzero and F/X make-up artist Gary Tunnicliffe, both of whom keep things pretty technical yet informative; and one with actor Samm Levine, a gaggle of producers, the visual effects supervisor, and the film's editor, which, once you get a handle on all the similar-sounding voices, is light and entertaining.

There are also some extended and deleted scenes (adding a lot of Somerhalder back in; his fans will be pleased), your typical EPK interviews from the set, a visual effects featurette, and a mini-doc on how ghosts really do use computers to reach out and touch someone (it might as well have been recycled from the White Noise DVD).

For an hour and change waste of time, Pulse may not set your heart to pounding but you could do worse.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson