Although Pulse’s idea of making the possessed electricity a cruel killer is pretty unique, the movie starts to soon follow trails often seen in similar movies: A little kid, shunned by his peers senses a great danger within the house, but none of the grown ups believe him before it’s too late.

This is not to say that some predictability is bad – in many cases following the beaten path but in a memorable way can create a genre cult classic. Pulse really does nothing in a memorable way and it certainly isn’t that long lost classic movie of the era. With that out of the way, there’s a lot to love here as well. The cinematography is solid and the movie successfully culminates towards the end. Cliff De Young has always been a great guy to be cast as the family dad and the same goes here, and Joey Lawrence as the 12-year old protagonist performs admirably and comparable to many top kids actors of the era.

Pulse doesn’t reach the standards of the other haunted house movies of the 80s – the likes of Poltergeist, House and Amityville Horror – but is still very much a recommended watch.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 76%