fear dot com
One of the greatest tragedies of some substandard movies is when one element is executed so well, so competently, so effectively – but the rest of the film is a laughable mish mosh of crap and silliness. This is what viewers of feardotcom will suffer.
First: The stuff that works. These people worked hard and deserve recognition (and are the reason the film isn’t relegated to Avoid At All Costs status), and heaven knows they probably won’t get it anywhere else but here. The premise is that there is a website called feardotcom.com (not www.fear.com, but www.feardotcom.com, which is stupid, but I am sure there was some licensing problem) which contains horrifying imagery, and 48 hours after one views this site, one dies a pretty unpleasant “natural” death, generally having to do with one’s worst fears. For example, an arachnophobe would be fatally bitten by a spider, or some such. When in doubt, a quick and dirty brain hemorrhage will do the trick.
Anyway, in the world of cinema, such conceits can be accepted, just like we accept the Matrix and alternate universes where Mel Gibson remains single into his 40’s. The site itself is a horrifying live-feed torture-and-snuff show, run by a known serial killer, known as The Doctor (Stephen Rea), with pretty intense graphics and disturbing, heebie-jeebie-arousing stuff. This, while perversely twisted, is actually executed (no pun intended) in the film brilliantly. No real gore, no actual violence is shown, yet it’s more disturbing than any moment in Silence of the Lambs or The Cell. And the “website” is also very spooky and cool. Bravo to the filmmakers for creating such a deeply terrifying cinematic invention. There is also a level deeper than just “evil doctor makes snuff site that kills,” which is a little corny but at least it’s trying.
However, the problem lies in the rest of the film. The dialogue is painful and motiveless, but nothing unexpected. See, Stephen Dorff (already a bad sign) is like, a cop, right, who knows the serial killer’s name and MO, gets letters from him every day, yet is unable to catch him. No doubt, a maniac with the web capabilities and bandwidth that The Doctor has, would have a paper trail. Don’t rent “Dorff on Policework” any time soon. Seriously, if he had watched 3 episodes of Barney Miller before taking this role, he would have been infinitely more convincing. Waving his gun around anywhere but where it could be useful, stumbling through a crime scene, and of course, his determination to find the culprit by becoming a victim are just examples. Not only did the audience groan and snicker, they laughed, hooted, and tsked. Once he calls in the forensic programmer, it was all over.
Enter the dame, Natascha McElhone, who, as an unspecified employee of the Department of Health, has less street cred than Dorff but at least she has an excuse; she also happens to be more resourceful and uses both sides of her brain at the same time to solve the case. Every time these two hapless yahoos are on screen, the movie is tedious and almost-funny. When the Doctor or the website lady (a Sharon Stonesque blonde who apparently wants you to watch her be hurt, but then kills you) are on screen, the movie is genuinely scary.
MPAA Rating R for grisly torture, nudity and language
Release date 8/30/02
Time in minutes 98
Director William Malone
Studio Warner Bros
