Pulse (Kairo)

Yes, Pulse (2006), directed by Jim Sonzero and starring Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder, is a remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Japanese film Kairo from 2001. The remake swaps Tokyo for the US but keeps the premise of ghosts reaching the living through networked computers. Most critics consider the original far more unsettling.

In the film, rooms sealed with red tape are forbidden — a warning not to enter and a barrier associated with the spreading apparitions. Characters discover the tape on a door where someone barricaded themselves before dying. It becomes a recurring visual signal of the contagion passing between people through networks.

The wave of ghosts, which spreads through the internet and seems to feed on loneliness, goes effectively global, with Tokyo emptying and imagery of a doomed airliner and last survivors adrift on a ship. Kurosawa suggests humanity itself is being erased rather than a few characters being haunted. The bleak, apocalyptic scale of the ending is a major reason the film is held in such high regard.

Kairo belongs to the same early-2000s J-horror phenomenon as Ringu (1998) and Ju-On, and it screened at Cannes in 2001. But its themes differ: rather than a cursed videotape, it uses ghosts transmitted through computers to explore isolation in a newly connected society. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa was already known for the psychological horror film Cure (1997).