Pulse, the new movie opening on August 11th taps into this interesting facet of modern times. Everyone’s connected to everyone else--- what with the blogs, and the Blackberries, and the Myspace. But instead of building fear of this new connectivity, this slow-paced movie sticks to tired horror movie cliches.

Wes Craven co-wrote the script but handed the directing duties to Jim Sorzeno. Yeah, I don’t know him either. But all the Craven staples are here: you’ve got the beautiful heroine Mattie (played by Kristen Bell), sexy friends and a supernatural menace.

What you don’t have is any kind of fear built up over several scenes. Instead we’re treated to vignettes of spooky happenings that usually ends with a loud noise of some sort, along with a close up of a face coming RIGHT TO THE CAMERA! OMG! And is it me, or does Ohio look awfully like Romania in this film?

The plot centers around ghosts that come through the computers to kill people. They essentially suck the will to live out of you until you commit suicide or turn into a spot of black ash. Get it? Computers turn the kids apathetic and sullen! See how this connects to the Everquest guy?

Mattie discovers this new threat after her ex-boyfriend kills himself and leaves startling clues on his PC. Along the way she enlists the help of a totally cute guy™ (Ian Somerhalder) who looks like he couldn’t decode an instruction manual for a hair dryer much less a top-secret virus.

What confuses me is why are all the ghosts such jagoffs? The film’s vision of the afterlife raises a lot of questions. Apparently, when a person dies they sit around on a webcam. This is what I have to look forward to? Why do the ghosts want to kill people? I hate to think of dear old grammy in the afterlife waiting in front of a webcam for a chance to come over and suck the life out of me. “No grammy! I never thought your peanut brittle sucked! NOOOOOOOO!”

Dracula had holy water, the Wolfman had Silver, and these Ghosts have red tape. Yup, the way to defeat these spectres from the other side is to visit Home Depot and plaster your room with the stuff. This does work to make some creepy-looking scenes, but other than that I have to play the “lame” card.

Pulse is based on a Japanese film Kairo, and seems to take its lighting design from The Ring. I think a viewer’s time would be better spent updating the old MySpace page with a new song by Good Charlotte. It’s basically the same thing.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to teach my Paladin a new skill online.