Pulse & The Social Network

Even though it was a subtitled film, I actually really enjoyed “Pulse.” It creeped me out, albeit not as much as I was hoping for, but the general idea of the ghosts was interesting. I liked the fact that it wasn’t the typical opaque spirit searching for a soul or rite of passage out of purgatory, but rather these spirits that were invading Earth because they had ran out of room in the other world. It’s almost similar to an Alien movie by the way they were “invading” and haunting everyone. From what I remember, they don’t exactly have a distinct face but more of a ghostly figure, which makes it even creepier. Having the ghosts take over through the internet reminds me of a cliché, saying that the internet is stealing our souls because all we do is spend countless amounts of hours on it, rather than going out in the world and interacting with people. (But, as a college student, you are susceptible and trained to use the internet for our basic needs, making it harder to survive day to day assignments without the use of blackboard and webmail. I mean right now, I’m typing this while surfing Facebook. Facebook is probably stealing my soul right now too). I do think it’s a good technique to compare the ghosts stealing souls with the internet, because we are losing touch with our own selves via technology. 2001 was back in the day when I suffered from dial-up where I lived (and hearing the dial-tone in the movie brought back bad memories), but it’s amazing how much technology and our dependence on it has changed in the past 10 years. This movie shows how we shouldn’t rely so heavily on materialistic aspects of technology to help us through day to day tasks. Sure, it makes it easier on us, but we begin to become so helpless sometimes. No longer do we write letters or go out and meet people the old-fashioned way. We’re prone to instant messaging and facebook chats if we want a conversation going. Skype is a more personable touch, but I personally am guilty of texting more than calling a person. Thank god for UNC though for allowing me to actually go out and meet people every day if I want to, when I walk around campus. That’s something Facebook couldn’t really give me a good experience of.

Overall though, I enjoyed the film. Not a huge fan of Japanese stuff if it’s not anime, and I’m not big on subtitles- but sitting in my room with the lights off watching this movie gets pretty scary at some points- especially watching the scene where the girl commits suicide when she jumps off the water tower. The whole “splat” sound wasn’t very enticing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

^I hate this sound.