Director Dave Boyle is the latest filmmaker to tackle a remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s cult 2001 techno-horror, Pulse. Bad Feeling, the production company founded by Parker Finn and perhaps best known for his hit Smile movies, is said to be developing a remake of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 cult classic, Pulse. The project is being ... Pulse | The 2001 J-horror classic is being remade – again
Director Dave Boyle is the latest filmmaker to tackle a remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s cult 2001 techno-horror, Pulse.
Bad Feeling, the production company founded by Parker Finn and perhaps best known for his hit Smile movies, is said to be developing a remake of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 cult classic, Pulse.
The project is being headed up by director Dave Boyle, an independent filmmaker who’s made a number of movies with a Japanese flavour, including his 2006 debut, Big Dreams Little Tokyo, Tokyo Cowboy (2023) and House Of Ninjas (2024).
Boyle’s latest film is Never After Dark, a horror film with a Japanese cast – it stars Moeka Hoshi, Kurumi Inagaki and Kento Kaku. Praised by none other than Stephen King, it’s been well-received at festivals so far, and opens in the US later in September 2026.
All of which makes Boyle a logical fit for a Pulse remake – assuming you think it actually needs one. Kurosawa’s original was a techno nightmare from the early days of the internet, with its first half an hour in particular being one of the most terrifying stretches in any 2000s horror film.
An inevitable English-language remake popped up in 2006, directed by Jim Sonzero and co-written by Wes Craven. It wasn’t good, but did, somewhat bafflingly, lead to a pair of sequels.
Per Deadline, which first ran the story, Dave Boyle will rewrite a new Pulse script by Luke Piotrowski, with Parker Finn and Jonathan Fass producing via the above-mentioned Bad Feeling.
This isn’t the only cult classic being remade by the company. Its reworking of the 1981 horror Possession is due out next year, and sees Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley take over from Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a couple experiencing the breakup from hell.
If nothing else, these remakes may prompt younger audiences to seek out those classic originals. Pulse, which suggests that the internet is a ghost-strewn hellscape which distorts our perception of reality, now looks like a documentary.
