In his film that has become even more relevant since the days of mandatory lockdowns worldwide, writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse uses terrifying genre conventions to explore technological escapism and isolation. 

Two people, a botanist (Kumiko Asō, Mirai) and an economics student (Haruhiko Kato, Like a Dragon) find themselves drawn irreversibly drawn towards the internet after encountering mysterious images on their computers. Both hope to understand other people in their lives more, one to find closure at a friend’s disappearance and the other to reach out in ways they find impossible in regular life. However, the two find it’s not just the living who experience loneliness when others try reaching out at them. 

Pulse features cinematography by Junichiro Hayashi, who helped codify the language of Japanese horror cinema with his work here and in other defining films of the era such as Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1999). Jeremiah Kipp positions the film’s power with how it “…taps into a fear greater than death: the nightmare of a life not being lived.” Traversing a cinematic territory that many have since attempted to replicate, Pulse eschews gore and easy shocks for a harrowing tone unique to Kurosawa’s cinema. This is a dense and complex film whose metaphysical and psychological resonance will last long after the chills have subsided.