‘Battlestar’ Vet Jamie Bamber Lands ‘Pulse’ Sequels
Apolo Player to Star in Two Future Flicks
According to Bloody-Disgusting, last year’s Kristen Bell horror flick Pulse has not one but two sequels in store for fans, despite the fact that the American adaptation of the 2001 Japanese original Kairo flopped both with critics and moviegoers, earning a paltry $20.26 million stateside on an initial $20 million investment. The two new installments in the franchise, Pulse 2: Afterlife and Pulse 3: Invasion, reportedly begin filming back-to-back this month in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Essentially a film about suicide-inducing evil phantoms that take over computers after a virus establishes a connection between the realm of the dead and the world of the living, the atmospheric yet poorly plotted 2006 Hollywood version starred Lost‘s Ian Somerhalder and Grammy-nominated singer Christina Milian, in addition to Veronica Mars icon Bell.
Moviehole.net additionally reports that Jamie Bamber—better known as Battlestar Galactica‘s Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama to most—was recently cast in the two Pulse sequels slated for 2009. He will portray a divorced father and businessman named Stephen who, after frakking up his own marriage following an affair, hides in the mountains while trying to protect his daughter from the phantom of her dead mother.
The second and third installments, both written and directed by career horror producer, writer, and director Joel Soisson, will be released in direct-to-video format and will feature none of the original Hollywood version’s cast members. Of course, the last comes as no surprise given the widespread flak the film received before it even hit theaters, which makes direct-to-video sound about right. That way, the sequels can take better advantage of Bamber’s huge fan following and the support of those people who did appreciate last year’s visually captivating release, without the threat of a prominent critical thrashing looming overhead.
Bloody-Disgusting gives the following synopsis for Pulse 2: Afterlife.
The world has been reshaped by the invasion of ghosts via the wireless internet. Cities are deserted, technology has been destroyed and the few remaining human beings eschew anything electrical in order to avoid a confrontation with the soulless ghosts that now wander the planet. Most of the ghosts are doomed to a repetitive loop of something they did while they were still despairing humans (a man repeatedly hangs himself, for example), but there are some ghosts so locked in denial, they do not know they are dead. They continue to haunt their homes, wrapped in fear that their souls will soon be torn from them.
And the synopsis for Pulse 3: Invasion is as follows.
It is now seven years later and the survivors on Earth have settled into a primitive lifestyle completely void of electronics. The clusters of human survivors live together in refugee camps as the phantoms have taken over the cities. Justine is now a teenager and she escapes to the city to try and make a life for herself where she is not a drain on her adopted family (her parents both became phantoms in part one). She heads in to the city at the urging of Adam, a seeming survivor in the city that lures her with promises of understanding and friendship.
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Jamie Bamber photo courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel
