Pulse 2: Afterlife (DVD)

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The green screen issue is only one of my peeves. The pacing for the first twenty minutes or so is dreadfully slow. It's hard to feel anything for the characters when Michelle (Georgina Rylance) only spends about half a minute looking for her missing young daughter, Justine (Karley Scott Collins), and the rest of the time she's dazed and confused. Stephen on the other hand searches harder for Justine, but he cheated on Michelle with Marta (Boti Bliss), who is a real bitch. So why should I care what happens to these people when they don't seem to care much about each other?

"Pulse 2" does have nudity and even a gory scene with a dead cat being under the Dimension Extreme and all. The problem is even those aren't all that interesting. I think my favorite part of the whole movie was seeing the cameo of John Gulager, and that's most likely because I just finished reviewing one of his far better films.

Video:
"Pulse 2" is presented in anamorphic widescreen with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The picture quality is dark, gritty, and grainy--most likely from the poor lighting and the green screen infestation. It's not terrible, but it isn't all that great, either.

Audio:
The audio for the disc utilizes a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, with optional subtitles in English (for the hearing impaired) and Spanish. No real complaints here. The sound delivered what it was supposed to, although there wasn't much in the surround department that will blow you away in this kind of film.

Extras:
It looks like I spoke too soon (or is that wrote too soon?). Anyway, in my recent review for Feast II: Sloppy Seconds I mentioned that the DVD's commentary seemed to have a record number of seven commentators. Well, "Pulse 2: Afterlife" trumps that by one with its "Audio Commentary By Writer/Director Joel Soisson, Producer Michael Leahy, Co-Producer Christian Agypt, Line Producer Ron Vecchiarelli, Editor Kirk Morri, Makeup Effects Supervisor Gary J. Tunnicliffe & Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin O´Neill." If hearing a bunch of filmmakers tooting their own horns interests you, feel free to check this out.

Next, we have a pair of deleted scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor: "The Circle of Death" (1:47) and "Guilt" (1:51). Both don't add much, although the latter is an unfinished sequence with the ever-popular green screen.

Wrapping things up is "A Sneak Peek at Pulse 3" (0:44), as well as a few trailers on startup: "The Zombie Diaries," "Mother of Tears," and "George A. Romero's: Diary of the Dead."

One other thing worth mentioning here is that the DVD case comes housed in a foil-embossed slipcover that looks pretty cool.

The Final Cut:
"Pulse 2" had potential, but Joel Soisson really dropped the ball. If he keeps cutting corners, rushing out scripts, and sticking to ideas that were already started for him, he's not going to go very far. This is probably the number one factor why he's still in the kiddie pool when it comes to making movies. My only hope is that "Pulse 3: Invasion" takes a stab at redeeming the trilogy, but being rumored to be shot in twelve days and in the hands of Soisson, I won't be holding my breath.

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