Crew
Director/Screenplay – Joel Soisson, Producer – Michael Leahy, Photography – Brandon Trost, Music – Elia Cmiral, Themes – Nicole Weinstein, Visual Effects Supervisor – Kevin J. O’Neill, Visual Effects – Neo Digital, Special Effects Supervisor – Jack Lynch, Makeup Effects – Two Hours in the Dark, Inc. (Designer – Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Production Design – Ermano Di Febo-Orsini. Production Company – Neo Art & Logic.
Cast
Jamie Bamber (Stephen), Georgina Rylance (Michelle Kramer), Karley Scott Collins (Justine), Boti Bliss (Marta), Lee Garlington (Aunt Carmen), Robin McGee (Hutch), Todd Geibenhain (Man in Red), Grant James (Uncle Pete)
Plot
The horrors released from the internet have had a devastating effect on society. One of the victims was Michelle Kramer, who became obsessed with the suicide videos following the divorce from husband Stephen. She wakes in the alternate realm and wanders through the strange landscape in search of her daughter Justine. In the outside world, Stephen flees through the devastation with Justine, trying to avoid the infected. Michelle’s ghost appears to them, beckoning Justine to join her.
Pulse 2 was a sequel to Pulse (2006), a film about horrors emerged from the internet that enjoyed modest theatrical release. This was actually a remake of a Japanese film Pulse (2001) from Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The English-language version came with a script from Wes Craven that made much more logical sense of Kurosawa’s characteristically baffling plotting. The remake came through Dimension Films, a subsidiary of Miramax – and yes, both Pulse and Pulse 2 have Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob listed as executive producers. Dimension then handed the Pulse property over to Joel Soisson and his Neo Art & Logic production company, who had produced the original and has been behind a host of cheap sequels to other properties. Soisson took the director’s chair for Pulse 2 and its sequel Pulse 3 (2008). (See below for Joel Soisson’s other films).
Pulse 2 opens in a way that catches your attention. We follow a character dressed in red robes, hood and face mask – shades of the Red Death in The Masque of the Red Death (1964) – as they exit a building into an alley and face phantom figures that flicker like black-and-white images of a tv with a poor broadcast signal. We then follow Georgina Rylance as she makes her way through a deserted city filled with ash, looking for her daughter. She comes across her aunt (Lee Garlington) and finds that her uncle (Grant James) has barricaded himself in his room but is afraid to disturb him. (Later we meet Uncle Pete and find him covered in blood where he has eaten the cat). In the yard, Georgina thinks she has found her daughter who is sitting on the swing, but the figure keeps her face hidden behind her hoodie and does not answer, even as the aunt warns that it is not her.
It is something certainly different. The interesting thing about the film is Joel Soisson’s take-no-prisoners approach. Pulse 2 is a film that will make no sense whatsoever to anybody who has not seen its predecessor. You have to applaud a film for taking up the slack left by the previous film and going with it in that way. For everyone else, that does leave a film that seems to be taking place without even any basic explanations about what is going on.
In other regards, Pulse 2 is largely a routine effort on all other fronts that simply suffers from being another of Joel Soisson’s B-budget sequels. It is raised occasionally by some of the strangeness of Soisson’s directorial effects. Like when Jamie Bamber has retreated to a cabin and the ghost of Georgina Rylance breaks through as another black-and-white phantom and comes seeking their daughter. All before he flees with the daughter only for his girlfriend Boti Bliss to be caught and turned into a phantom. Not long after, neighbour Robin McGee turns up and is seduced by Boti as the black tendrils start crawling over her body and they have sex on the floor, before the camera pulls back and reveals that her body is dissolving into a pile of black goo.
Joel Soisson served as producer on Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence (1993), The Prophecy (1995), Drive (1997), Trekkies (1997), Phantoms (1998), The Prophecy II (1998), The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Mimic 2 (2001), Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001), Dracula II: Ascension (2003), Trekkies 2 (2004), Dracula III: Legacy (2005), Feast (2005), Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008), Feast 3: The Happy Finish (2009), Hellraiser: Revelations (2011), War of the Dead (2011), Piranha 3DD (2012), White Frog (2012), Toonstone (2014), Little Pink House (2017) and Seven Cemeteries (2024). He has also written scripts for Trick or Treat (1986), The Supernaturals (1986), Highlander: Endgame (2000) and most of the above. As director he has made The Prophecy: Uprising (2005), The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005), Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) and Cam2Cam (2014).
Trailer here