The Popkorn Junkie :: Feardotcom

What would you think if the Internet could carry negative energy and just bad mojo? You'd be thinking that you're in a movie, because this isn't at all possible. Alas, this film is still pretty good.

But fear.com has nothing to do with the movie "fear dot com". I thought it was related to the movie, but the site in the movie is feardotcom.com and that site just brings up the WB page for this movie. Well, there is a flash page, but its nothing like the flash page in the movie. This is really my only qualm. They could have bested "The Blair Witch" here, but they didn't even come close.

So what's this "flash page" I keep talking about? There's this really sick death site where people can watch this really sick death guy torture women and then kill them because they asked to be killed...because he was torturing them he broke them. Yeah, this film is not for the squeamish.

The film begins with people dying, and at first the detectives think it's some kind of flesh-eating virus, but they soon find no traces of a virus. They are baffled...until they realize that everybody who died seemed to be scared of computers or specifically the Internet in their last days.

When people log-on to feardotcom.com, they are asked by a woman, "Do you like to watch?", "Do you want to hurt me?", then "Do you want to play? Yes or no." It doesn't matter which they choose, because once you go to that site, even if only for a second, you browser goes back to that site, or your computer turns on and opens that website. Forcing you to play and win or you will be dead in 48 hours. You will die of what you are most afraid of. The photography and lighting is top notch. They're some really cool shots as well, great angles. The thing I probably like most about this film is that they don't really explain much and they make you think. Something I wasn't really expecting before I saw this.

Should you go see this film? Again, if you are squeamish, then no, this is NOT for you, but if you like dark films like I do, then you should see this. This shouldn't be missed then.

-- James ( 3 1/2 out of 4 pops )

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Billy Ray ( 2 1/2 out of 4 pops )

After lending his visual touches to episodes of "Tales from the Crypt" and "Freddy's Nightmares", William Malone made his feature film debut with "House on Haunted Hill", which I thought was a brilliant horror film, and leagues better than the original Vincent Price vehicle. I was, however, skeptical of "Fear Dot Com". The trailers weren't exactly enticing and the whole idea seemed kind of nonsensical. However, being the horror junkie that I am, I purchased my Twizzlers and Mello Yello and watched the flick anyway. I was split right down the middle. "Fear Dot Com" is a weird hybrid of several other films, like "Seven", "What Lies Beneath", and "Dark City". The cinematography is great and the ending is superb (though the scene with Stephen Rea in the room at the end is eerily similar to the scene with Geoffrey Rush in "House on Haunted Hill"), but what drags the movie down is the absolutely awful dialogue and mediocre acting. Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone are laughable in their equally boring roles, while Stephen Rea is perfectly sinister in his role as The Doctor. If you remember Rea's role from "Interview with the Vampire", you know just how creepy he can be. So, basically, this movie was decent to watch because of the dark and dreary camera work, which was incredibly similar to that of "Dark City", but this film really bombed in the script department, which was a joke. And, I really don't get the purpose of the end scene, when McElhone receives a phone call, only to have no one respond when she answers. I thought about it and thought about it, and even asked a couple people in the theater what they thought about it, and none of us could figure out how it was relevant. William Malone is a great horror director, and this one is a nice addition to his growing resume, but he needs to choose screenplays a little more carefully, because this film came close to being a complete waste of time. A different cinematographer, director of photography, and replace Rea as The Doctor, and this film sucks.