Kristen Bell's 86-Minute Remake Of A Hit Sci-Fi J-Horror Movie Is Streaming For Free

Kristen Bell thrives in roles where she's playing sharp, witty, and fast-talking characters in comedies and dramas. Such was the case with her breakthrough role as a teenage private detective in "Veronica Mars," which ran for four seasons and had a movie between 2004 and 2019. The same goes for her character, Eleanor Shellstrop, in the existentialist comedy "The Good Place," which ran for four seasons from 2016 to 2020. In "The Good Place," Eleanor is sent to heaven (the titular Good Place) by mistake after she dies and must pretend she belongs or risk getting sent to The Bad Place. Since 2024, she's been starring in the hit series "Nobody Wants This" on Netflix.

But it may surprise fans to know that Bell has tried her hand at horror, too, like in the 2006 film "Pulse," a remake of the hit techno Japanese horror (J-horror) of the same name. It was co-written by Wes Craven, the mastermind behind horrors like "Swamp Thing," "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and "Scream." She played Mattie Webber, a university student who enlists the help of a hacker named Dexter McCarthy (Ian Somerhalder) to stop a computer virus that is causing people to take their own lives in pandemic numbers.

Bell showed some serious dramatic chops, even though the movie was panned by critics and audiences alike. But if you're a fan of hers, Wes Craven, or techno-horror, you might want to check it out for some low-stakes B-movie thrills. It's now streaming for free on Tubi.

"Pulse" is about a cursed computer virus that opens portals to the afterlife using wireless signals, bringing in phantoms that feed on people's wills to live. Mattie learns about the virus through Dexter after her hacker boyfriend, Josh Ockmann (Jonathan Tucker) dies. Josh unleashed the virus after hacking the system of someone developing a powerful wireless signal, accidentally opening the portal for the phantoms. As the virus spreads, places where wireless signals can't reach become safe zones. However, Josh left a memory stick with a counter program he believes can stop the scourge. It's up to Mattie and Dexter to execute it on the server Josh hacked before it's too late.

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave "Pulse" an 11%, with the consensus stating it lacks the soul of the original, trading it for "pumped-up visuals and every known horror cliché." Still, Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder give entertaining performances. The premise of the movie is appealing, especially in today's hyperconnected world.

There's an argument to be made that in our desire to be more connected than ever wirelessly, we're becoming physically more disconnected and increasingly lonely. It can be unsettling, which is why "Pulse" might be worth checking out, even if the execution leaves something to be desired. If you want another techno horror, where technology unleashes a supernatural evil onto the world, there's also Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne's 1997 cult-classic "Event Horizon."

You should also consider checking out the Japanese original (also named "Pulse"). It was released in 2001 and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a master at crafting these types of unsettling horrors and thrillers. This movie is centered around two parallel stories that eventually converge. One is of a female flower shop employee whose coworker dies. He leaves behind a computer disk showing he encountered a ghostly apparition while working on it. The other story is about a university student who tries to connect his computer to the internet, only to find that it keeps connecting him to strange websites that show unknown, strange people.

Both notice people around them disappearing after encountering ghostly apparitions on computers. It seems the spirits from the afterlife are entering the world of the living through the internet. They're causing anyone who comes in contact with them to feel a deep sense of loneliness. It's so intense that some take their own lives while others simply disintegrate into nothingness.

On Rotten Tomatoes, this "Pulse" holds a 76%, with the consensus reading that Kurosawa creates an unsettling techno-horror. Its power to do that "lies in the power of suggestion rather than a barrage of blood and guts or horror shop special effects." "Pulse," along with "Cure" (also by Kurosawa) and "The Grudge," are some of the movies that led to the surge in popularity of J-horrors, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.