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Directed by William Malone
Starring Amelia Curtis Natascha McElhone
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Rea
Udo Kier
From the director of “House on Haunted Hill” comes this similarly flashy but totally un-fun, all-too-serious cyber horror film that robs quite liberally from Mario Bava’s “Kill Baby Kill.” A talented cast couldn’t even save this sink from shipping.
Dorff (normally incredible in movies like “Blade” and John Water’s “Cecil B. Demented”) sleepwalks through his role a police investigator on the lookout for a slasher (Stephen Rea) who broadcasts his murders over the Internet for the world to see. He claims they’ve never been able to track the madman down because he keeps “changing domain names.” Anyone with even a modicum of experience on the Internet would know that would nowhere near prevent police from tracking down a killer with a Web site. But never mind.
In the meantime, people who visit a strange Web site that appears to be broadcasting the murders -- “FearDotCom,” hence the title of the movie – have visions of a little girl playing with a white ball before they die in mysterious ways. A very, very similar little girl with a ball, who kills off people who witness her, also happened to turn up in Mario Bava’s “Kill Baby Kill,” a much superior movie, I might add. But never mind again.
Borrowing now from the Japanese thriller “The Ring,” the cop visits the Web site. His love interest in the story, a female investigator (played by talented actress McElhone), also visit the site. Now they must unravel the mystery of the killings – both the ones broadcast on the site and the ones that happen upon people who visit the site – before they both die.
Without an original bone in its entire body, “Fear Dot Com” isn’t even saved by the presence of Jeffrey Combs, normally a welcome addition to any horror film. In fact, the last Jeffrey Combs movie – the ultra-low-budget clunker “The Attic Expeditions” – is actually a superior movie than “Fear Dot Com” and uses Combs to much better effect. Here, Combs plays an almost unnecessary sidekick investigator who has little to do with the plot. He’s wasted. Look for a wasted Udo Kier somewhere in the movie as well.
In all, this was one of the biggest disappointments of 2002. The hype for it was pretty strong, but it bombed at the box office. Meanwhile, truly fantastic films like “Dog Soldiers” weren’t even released to theaters in 2002, and some, like “Frailty,” were barely released.
It’s a shame that people are making horror films like “Fear Dot Com” and releasing them wide. The real flaw of this film is that it took itself way too seriously, something that “House on Haunted Hill” definitely did not do. Pass on this one.
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-- Review by Lucius Gore
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