Dave Boyle to Direct Screen Gems’ Reimagining of Japanese Horror Classic PULSE

One of Japan’s creepiest horror movies is getting another shot at haunting modern audiences. Sony’s Screen Gems and Spyglass are developing a new reimagining of Pulse, with Dave Boyle set to direct the project.

Originally released in 2001, Pulse is the kind of horror movie that makes an internet connection feel like something you should probably unplug immediately. Now the Japanese techno-horror story is being rebuilt for the modern era, and Boyle will also take a pass at a screenplay written by Luke Piotrowski.

Parker Finn and Jonathan Fass will produce through Bad Feeling alongside Spyglass. Bad Feeling is the company behind Finn’s Smile films and is also producing Paramount’s upcoming remake of the 1981 horror film Possession.

The original Pulse was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and it earned critical acclaim. The film follows young people in Tokyo who encounter increasingly disturbing events involving missing friends and co-workers, failing technology, and a mysterious website.

It’s an eerie piece of techno-horror that arrived at a time when the internet still felt strange, new, and slightly unknowable. More than two decades later, when technology has become practically inseparable from everyday life, there’s plenty of material for a new version to play with.

Screen Gems and Spyglass aren’t revealing how Boyle’s Pulse will reinterpret Kurosawa’s film. Plot details and even the location are under wraps. What we do know is that the story will take place in the present day and center on a new group of characters.

Boyle’s involvement comes just before the release of his supernatural horror movie Never After Dark, which Magnolia Pictures will release in the U.S. on September 25. Boyle wrote and directed the film, which won the Midnighter Audience Award following its premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival.

He also has a history of making projects connected to Japan and Japanese characters, including House of Ninjas and Tokyo Cowboy, which makes him an interesting filmmaker to take on a new interpretation of Kurosawa’s work.

There’s certainly room to explore Pulse through the technology we live with now. The internet of 2001 is almost unrecognizable compared to the world of smartphones, social media, constant connectivity, AI, cameras, apps, and devices that follow us everywhere.

The trick will be preserving the unsettling horror that made Kurosawa’s original work while finding something new to say about our relationship with technology.