10 Movies That Show The Dark And Evil Side Of Social Media

9. Pulse (2001)

A sinister techno-horror straight out of Japan, Pulse clawed its way onto Western screens in 2001, with its success inspiring a somewhat inevitable Hollywood remake a few years later starring Kirsten Bell. Whilst the American version floundered, the Japanese original was a big success across the globe. Pulse turned a relevant and current topic of internet access into a chilling horror movie with a premise that suggests that the advancement of modern technology was so rapid that it extended into a further world beyond our knowledge or control. A supernatural element enters the lives of the movie's characters through their connections to the web, and what follows are encounters with a terrifying force told through two separate parallel-running story-lines. What's Dark About It? A film utterly dedicated to freaking out its audience, Pulse is as morbid and morose as it is scary; echoing familiarly dark and ghostly territory that is often explored in supernatural J-horror. Pulse is a little different to its counterparts however, with its USP lying in its particular execution. Indeed, it is a movie that prefers to force the viewer to wait in excruciating apprehension of what might come out of the shadows, rather than expose them to cheap shock effects that jump out of the night on a regular basis. Is It Any Good? Suspenseful, brooding, and toe-curlingly creepy, Pulse is less aggressively nasty than the classic Japanese Horror company it finds itself in, but still manages to be equally as scary. You can often judge the competency of a horror movie by its ability to get under your skin, and it's testament to director Kiyoshi Kurosawa that a topic as far-fetched and surrealistic as the one in Pulse still achieves an effect that chills you to the bone. You've never see the internet quite like this.