Almost three years ago, I dismissed the movie “Pulse 3: Invasion” while reviewing “Pulse 2: Afterlife” by penning the following unflattering characterization:
“Pulse 3: Invasion,” directed and written by Joel Soisson, occurs in a world reduced to rubble thanks to the events of the first movie. It tells a rather unsettling story of a 17-year-old girl named Justine (Brittany Finamore) trying to find a mysterious Internet-ghost named Adam (Rider Strong) who hopes to bring the dead victims of the demons back to life. This movie tries so hard to wrap up the plot threads for the larger “Pulse” universe established by the first two films that it barely has time to create a memorable B-plot. Even worse, its resolution to the A-plot feels unclear and unsatisfying. There is a charm to the ostentatiously jargon-y pseudo-science spewed at certain points, and the best character from the second film is given a monologue that counts as the only good thing about “Pulse 3: Invasion.” (This is true if you have an affinity for science-y sounding gibberish mixed with mad scientist mugging.) Other than that, though, it’s a slog.
I put those words to paper to explain why this movie’s predecessor was its qualitative superior. While I still believe that “Pulse 2: Afterlife” is better than the subsequent work of cinematic art, I recently re-watched “Pulse 3: Invasion” and nevertheless found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
I can explain why with three bullet points:
- As with “Pulse 2: Afterlife,” the near-constant use of green screen in “Pulse 3: Invasion” is very effective at mood-building. Many sci-fi and horror movies struggle to make their audiences feel as if they have truly escaped into a different universe, but the “Pulse” trilogy does not have this problem. In the first movie, the sense of escapism comes from the green palette, but here it is due to the disconnect between human characters and their immediate physical backgrounds. The result is an eerie, unsettling ambiance that permeates every scene in this story even more than in the one which came before it. (The two sequels were shot back-to-back.)
- Credited on IMDB merely as “Man with a plan,” Todd Giebenhain’s character is one of the best to appear in any direct-to-DVD horror sequel. In a handful of scenes lasting no more than a few minutes, Giebenhain creates a three-dimensional human being. The man with a plan (named “Man in Red” in the previous movie) is intelligent, determined and rough around the edges, yet not without his sympathetic qualities. Even better, he creates an apartment/base of operations that would be the envy of any bona fide nerd in similarly apocalyptic scenarios. While the art department in “Pulse 3” is responsible for making this world of internet ghosts feel real, the man with a plan is the first human to give ordinary filmgoers an avatar for themselves in this sci-fi universe.
- The film works as a tidy conclusion to the major plot thread left dangling after the first two installments: Will the ghosts be transported back to the evil dimension from which they came? Just as importantly, the new movie explains why the audience is following the specific character of Justine in her individual journey for survival and a sense of identity. After all, in theory the audience could tag along for any character’s narrative arc in this particular dystopian universe. “Pulse 3” answers the unspoken question of why we should care about this particular character… and convincingly.
“Pulse 3” has more than its fair share of flaws. Rider Strong plays an under-developed villain with murky motives; the special effects, though reasonably convincing, are hardly memorable; and Justine is a far cry from Mattie (Kristen Bell) and Michelle (Georgina Rylance), the previous movies’ protagonists, when it comes to feeling intelligent and worthy of sympathy. While Mattie was endearingly feisty and Michelle was tragically tortured, Justine can come across as whiny and entitled. Even though director and writer Joel Soisson (also the filmmaker behind “Pulse 2”) does his best to make Justine interesting, her shallow characterization makes her inevitably less interesting than the action and lore which surrounds her.
What action, though! What lore! As the closing chapter to a three-act story regarding humanity’s over-reliance on cyberspace, “Pulse 3” is the campy classic we crave but don’t deserve. Like “Pulse 2: Afterlife,” “Pulse 3: Invasion” is a guilty pleasure to which I return again and again and again.