Pulse (1988) [HD]

Destroy Your Home, Before It Destroys You!...
PULSE is about electricity gone bad. A young boy named David (Joey Lawrence) travels from his mum's home in Colorado to stay w/ his dad (Cliff De Young) in California. Little does he know that a freakish bolt of lightning has unleashed an evil, homicidal intelligence into the electric grid! This PULSE has taken up residence in a transformer just outside David's new abode, and has already jolted a neighbor to death! I was expecting another hilarious appliances-gone-mad movie like GHOST IN THE MACHINE, and was a bit disappointed by the ultra-slow build-up and lack of killer dishwashers, but the story was fairly engaging in a sappy sort of way. Joey Lawrence was a decent actor for his age, and should have done more than become a teen semi-icon. Oh well...

OK Movie but Superb transfer to DVD (2005 edition)
I purchased this DVD from the bargain bin at a audio store and the movie itself was OK, more like a made-for-TV movie. While the acting was fine, the plot was somewhat weak. Unfortunately, as another reviewer note, no explanation was given as to why these strange occurences (the electricity gone berserk) were happening--what it meant--or what all of this was leading to. Instead, the individuals beset with these ordeals were thought to be merely crazy. The story would have been so much better if the script had been the story of one family's struggle against a more widespread phenomenon. These inexplicable events did happen across the street at the opening of the movie--it must have been also happening elsewhere. This change in plot would likely have resulted in a higher budget and a larger cast, and that is probably why it was not done. However, there is one segment towards the end of the film where the special effects are quite good; this helps redeem the movie.

The...

A LESS THAN ELECTRIFYING TALE OF TERROR...
This is a moderately entertaining film about a house in which the electricity, the appliances, the boiler, the garbage disposal, the television, the water...ok,ok, you get my drift...become deadly threats to those who live in that house.

Eleven year old David (Joey Lawrence) goes to stay with his father, Bill (Cliff De Young), and his second wife, Ellen (Roxanne Hart), David's new step-mother, for the summer in their new house. They do everything to make him comfortable. David learns from a neighborhood friend, however, that the house next door was destroyed in a terrible, violent tragedy that cost the occupants their lives.

One night while home alone, David notices that the television seems to take on a life of its own. Soon, he begins to hear the house pulsating, as does Ellen. Bill, however, decides otherwise, thinking them inordinately paranoid, until he, too, hears the pulsating. Then, look out! It is every man for himself.

There is a fair amount of tension in the film,...

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