FearDotCom (2002)

There is so much wrong with Feardotcom that it's hard to know where to start, but the most cardinal of sins that it commits is that it fails on pretty much every level to be even remotely scary or, indeed, horrific.Seasoned gore-hounds will find the sub-Event Horizon body horror blink-and-you'll-miss-it bondage gear montages laughably tame, whilst the completely incoherent script rob the film of any sort of atmosphere that could possibly rescue it from the celluloid scrap heap; really, the script is quite staggeringly bad - characters seem to communicate primarily through non-sequiturs, with the two leads seemingly falling in love (? - like so much in this picture, this is never particularly clear) via the single utterance "please don't go look at that site" only for the very next scene to be Stephen Dorff's cardboard cutout of Brad Pitt in Se7en doing exactly that. The site, so the story tells us, is something akin to the tape in The Ring; a cursed url that brings the unsuspecting viewer into contact with the spirit of a victim of Stephen Dorff's imaginatively-named serial killer, "The Doctor", given unlife by the collective energies of the internet (bear with me, this gets even less coherent) in order to exact revenge for her livestreamed torture-death by... killing anyone who watches it in 48 hours. Why this ghost, manifesting most often as a decidedly unfrightening little girl with ludicrous hair, is intent on murdering random people instead of the actual man who killed her is never adequately explained.Said victim, by the way, was a haemophiliac with a fear of knives, whose mother inexplicably alllowed her to play at an abandoned steel mill (which, you guessed it, is where "The Doctor" has taken his latest victim, a terminally stupid cinema usher who decided to go to a creepy abandoned theater because said creepy serial killer said he would cast her in a movie upon first interacting with her, with predictable results), and thus her method of supernatural murder is to kill people via their worst fears, causing them to stroke out and bleed profusely from the eyes.So we get Udo Kier hurling himself in front of a subway train for no apparent reason, a forensic programmer swarmed by poor CGI bugs hurling herself out of a window, a character introduced randomly then inexplicably translocated to the abandoned steel mill so that the ghost can spiritually drive his car into a wall, and lingering shots of a german student's corpses nipples after she apparently thought she was drowing in a bath tub. None of this is handled in any way scarily; we don't care about any of these characters, we are given no reason to care about them when the ghost unceremoniously offs them, and their deaths are so poorly-handled we care nothing for them afterwards.Anyway, back to the plot! Natasha McElhone's CDC investigator rushes to the psych ward where Stephen Dorff's detective has been - without explanation - committed, screams randomly at a nonplussed receptionist, is directed to his room, where he is in the throes of a fit that no doctors are present administering to. She recieves a phone call from the ghost, for some reason. I can't actually remember if this is before or after she herself visits the eponymous website for no apparent reason.She then goes to the abandoned steel mill in order to encounter the spoooooky blind old woman (who takes no further part in the plot in any way and is just hanging out in a run down industrial complex to be spooky to Natasha McElhone for some reason) and finds the corpse of the victim-cum-murder ghost. Yay! The haunting's over! ...Nope. Despite the movie outright yelling at us that this would end the haunting, it doesn't. Why? I don't know.Anyway, despite being the absolute worst detectives in the world, Dorff and McElhone finally track down "The Doctor" and rescue his latest victim, in the process Dorff gets offed and "The Doctor" gets Top Dollar from The Crow'd to death by the internet ghost. We end on McElhone, alone again, recieving a phone call. Is it Dorff? The Doctor? The Ghostly Victim Girl apologising for murdering the shit out of a bunch of random people?No! It's just the sound of static! What a fittingly stupid end to a 'horror' film in which the second most shocking thing present is the exposed nipples of a murder victim, and the first most shocking is the absolutely incomprehensibly bad script. Watch only if drunk and with friends, for some MST3K action, otherwise find something more productive and horrifying to do with your time like clip your toenails or grout the bathroom. Oh, and Jeffrey Coombs (the rather excellent Weyoun from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) is entirely wasted as Dorff's asshole partner who communicates almost solely through orphaned sentences that have no relevance to anything going on around him.An absolute stinker, and legtimately one of the worst horror films I've ever seen. I'd rather watch Manos: The Hands of Fate twice back-to-back than subject myself to this cinematic turd again.

I've watched this movie three times, and I really want to like it but I just can't. There's nothing redeemable in this movie, despite having the potential to be a great cinematic experience. My biggest pet peeve with this movie would be the focus of the supernatural element. Had they just worked the killer angle, this movie could have potentially been another 'Se7en' however, the writers/director felt it necessary to add the paranormal element. It was extremely misplaced in this movie, adding nothing to the plot line aside from confusion. The movie falls flat for a variety of other reasons as well: (a) The acting in this movie was horrible, particularly that of Natascha McElhone. (b) Alistair had the capacity to be an amazing and memorable character.but Stephen Rea didn't bring the passion and sadism to the role that this character desperately needed to standout. I'm not sure if it was Rea's acting skills (as he has done well in other roles) or if was poor writing. I tend to go with the latter. (c) The supernatural element just didn't work. I can't really put my finger on why. All I can say is it seemed superfluous and nonsensical. Additionally, incorporating any aspect of horror should create fear. There was nothing scary in this movie. It simply felt like the writers/director couldn't decide rather to do a thriller or a horror movie. They did a little bit of both, and it didn't work. (d) If they wanted to go with an internet-based entity, I feel like the theme would have worked better now as opposed to 2002 because of the relevancy in social media and social interactions in present day compared to the early 2000's. (e) This is a small gripe, but why is the website: www.feardotcom.com? Really?! It is a small detail, but the small details are so important to the overall story. There are various other flaws within this movie, but those are the ones that standout the most. Basically, I don't recommend this movie. I would love to see it be remade into the movie it was meant to be. I can see it having potential. But, alas, I'm sure that will never happen, so we are left with this atrocity.

This is honestly a movie that I have loved since I've been probably 7 or 8 years old. I seen it around that time so that could be a reason why I give it a good rating. It is just one of those movies that has stuck to me through the years. The film is about people who log onto Feardotcom.com and end up mysteriously dying 48 hours later. A detective and a woman who studies viruses team up to stop the girl behind the computer as they logged on.One thing that always gets me is how this movie actually isn't any more popular due to it coming out when computers were getting big. I find the film haunting beautiful since it is shot in a rainy New York scene for all of the movie. The woman portraying the girl on the screen is good at doing a seductive killer who is haunting yet beautiful. I will say the acting is good but Natasha slightly lacks expression. If you know me, I am a big Stephen Dorff fan and this is just another movie he has excelled in.

What is wrong with reviewers? OMG, this is sad, and shows how people do not know crap for good movies. I bet every single review here that says how bad this movie is, says The Blair Witch Project is and was better. Well, you Blair Witch fans, you don't know jack about horror. I saw TBWP, and it has 5 minutes of black screen, and a girl saying stupid stuff about twigs making noises, and she sits in a tent crying with shot coming out of here nose, and everyone just getting lost in the woods swearing the F word.That movie is pathetic, not this one. TBWP trailer was just a pull you in to watch crap movie. I fell for it. I can't believe people rate that higher than this one. At least this had more interesting stuff going on, than some few people hanging out in the woods swearing and cussing, and acting like they are scared. TBWP did not make anything scary, except for me to not watch it again.The reviews here have going spoiled to rotten so bad, its tasteless, and vomiting.