Feardotcom (2002) Reviews

• FearNotCom

  mfrost82322004-12-22

  'Feardotcom' was filmed in Luxembourg (apparently standing in for New York, I think.) and hasn't been officially released yet. I saw it as one of the featured films during the Luxembourg International Film festival. (Cinenygma) - One of the executive producers, who introduced the film, said it wasn't 100% finished yet, and that even the title might change. However, since every second of the film was even more tortuous than the depravities depicted on the screen, I believe no amount of focus groups or editing could save this film. I'd say 'straight to video', but that would be a major waste of plastic and cardboard. I suppose if they market it as a parody, they might salvage the cost of, um, the catering during the film. Stephen Dorff plays a hard-boiled detective who's haunted by that one case that was never solved. You know he's haunted because he walks around with a 3 day growth of beard. Which stays at the same length the whole film, even though the film covers quite a few days (it was hard tell, nothing was very coherent) And guess what! His old nemesis from the unsolved case is killing again! Oh boy! And since we now have new cases to solve, AND they're dying from what looks to be a virus, we need to bring in the woman scientist and nominal love interest (Natascha McElhone - who displayed quite amply in 'The Truman Show' that she can't act. She must work cheap, or maybe they needed someone to make Dorff look good.) We know she's a scientist because she wears glasses. And just for grins we get Jeffrey Coombs as Dorff's partner, whose main role appears to be running around spouting non-sequiturs. Speaking of which, there was a writer listed for the film but I'd bet a Ben Franklin that they were making up the dialog as they went along, and probably for a different film. It's too bad 'Deep Space 9' went off the air - it might have prevented Coombs from getting caught up in this travesty. And there's Stephen Rea as the mad scientist, looking vaguely like Geoffrey Rush mad scientist character in 'Mystery Men.' Now, I could have sworn Rea could act, so maybe they are two of them? Amazingly a director is also listed, but from what I can tell they pretty much turned on the camera, came back later, took the film to the editing room, forgot to turn on the lights and just started editing. That would explain a lot. And what of the plot? Ha! There isn't one! Well, OK, maybe a little one. I think the deal was that the girl killed in the unsolved case somehow inhabited the internet and is killing people if they log on to the mad scientist's site, where HE tortures women until they beg him to kill them - and all for $9.95! (but just for grins they (the unfortunates who log into fear.com) only die after 48 hours, because, I think, that's how long it took her to be killed) But I think you'd need a broadband connection, because somehow when you login, this girl living in the internet puts a hex on you, which involves you falling off your chair and eventually trashing your apartment and nose bleeds, and um, dying from the fright of your worst fear (like being cast in this movie) and I really don't think that could happen with a dial up connection. Um, anyway, she's going to keep on killing people unless the mad scientist is caught. And her body is found too. I mean they threw that bit in there about finding the body, but then when it was found, it didn't count for anything! Now, doesn't that just bite. Damn fickle internet ghosts. **SPOILER** Actually this whole film was a spoiler, at least it smelled spoiled to me. Anyway - the final scene where Dorff and the McElhone rush into the mad scientist's lair (located in an abandoned steel mill or nuclear plant - the film couldn't make up it's mind what it was - it identified it as both during different scenes in the film) and stop him only seconds before he's going to kill his latest victim had me rolling in the aisle with laughter. It was just like watching an old horror film from the 30's or 40's. Maniacal laughter, bug-eyed expressions of madness, flashing lights, tilted camera angles. So they manage to save the girl, but then the mad scientist shoots Dorff, and then stabs McElhone then Dorff grabs a keyboard and logs into feardot.com which drives the mad scientist so mad - he dies from fear! Then Dorff dies, and McElhone, who was in love with Dorff (oh, did I leave that part out? - apparently they fell madly in love in some 30 second scene earlier in the film - some real in-depth character development going on here.) sort of cries over his body, but um, somehow she's no longer stabbed! Maybe it was her Multi-vitamin. **END OF SPOILER** So -um, in conclusion - I can't imagine any changes to this film possibly making it watchable. I'll be surprised if gets released at all (though the executive producer said Warner Bros had picked it up for US distribution, and Columbia-Tri-Star for the rest of the world. Let's hope they come to their senses.) You have been warned. Go watch 'Donnie Darko' instead!

• Worst Movie Ever

  BlinkFlame2009-04-30

  I would estimate that I've seen over a thousand movies in my lifetime. FeardotCom may very well be the worst of those films. The acting is bad, the dialogue is worse, and the editing is terrible. The film lacks coherence, cohesiveness, and, in some parts, comprehensiveness. The film manages to maintain its unwatchability for over an hour, but by that point the viewer will probably have already logged onto www.feardotcom.com in hopes of ending the misery. If I had been able to give this movie less than a star, I would have done so in a heartbeat. Do not make the mistake of renting this movie; there's a small chance it may scare you, but the odds of that happening are not worth sitting through 90 minutes of some of the worst examples of film-making.

• Got Fear?...this sure didn't. - Contains Spoiler

  Uriko2003-03-18

  Ok, so my boyfriend and I were going to go see this while it was in the theaters but we never quite made it (Perhaps it was a divine stroke of luck). So we rented the DVD from a video store. We were delayed from seeing it yet again (you'd think we would've taken the hint) and left the DVD disc at my house. After getting down to watching the movie, I was excited and ready to be scared. We'd watched The Ring a few nights ago and it easily gave me nightmares. But despite our hopes that this movie would do the same job, we were sorely let down. The movie had a strong start even if it was confusing. A man is hit by a subway train when he sees a little girl on the tracks. Why did he jump back out in front of the train? Then you meet the male lead and his associate in the police department. Why do they both sound like the stupidest cops you'll ever see? The female lead knew more about policing than the both of them. Most of the other actors sounded like they were reading off cue cards and the plot quickly because unbeliveable (ah yes, I'll let my sick daughter play in an old steel mill even if she's supposively afraid of sharp things and on top of that, how did Terry know to listen to the half blind old lady in the mill? and let's not forget, to get to the site, its "feardotcom.com" not "fear.com." the doctor got ripped off on his site) By this point in the movie I begged my boyfriend to let it keep playing just to see if it saved itself. It didn't. The ending was cliche', and the special effects when they killed the doctor were the only positive things in the movie. The basic story for FearDotCom was a creative one...but poorly executed (no pun intended). Save yourself a rental and go see something else. You'll thank yourself later.

• Incomprehensible

  TheEtherWalk2003-01-17

  About halfway through the movie, I was actually considering giving this a 4, but the complete and utter lack of reasoning in this movie that made me give it a 1 I will now try to sum up. The ghost made a website that people can log (and start hallucinating from) onto only 48 hours later they will be dead unless they find her body so she can exact revenge on someone who killed her on another website that people subscribe to, even though she kills other people in car crashes and train accidents who had no involvement with her death. Things I learned from FearDotCom: -Ghosts are capable of creating websites. -The internet is inherently evil. -People who use the internet are freaks. -People who use the internet are incapable of closing their eyes. -A bunch of weird images on a computer can drive someone crazy and make them hallucinate. -A bunch of weird images on a movie can drive someone so crazy that they hallucinate so they think what they are watching makes one ounce of logical sense. Obviously the producers of this movie wanted the audience to be driven insane by the film and have shut off our brains by the time the "ending" has arrived. Sadly, I was still conscious at the end which didn't explain anything and only dropped my score from a 4 to a 1. And it's a very boring movie too. Did I mention this movie sucks?

• Watching this is honestly similar to being brutally bludgeoned with a hard object

  Dragoneyed3632008-05-16

  I do not really remember how I came upon this movie, but I do know that somewhere along the way it has made it's way into my DVD collection. I do not know if I blindly bought it, was given it as a "gift", or if someone lent it to me and I just forgot to return it, but whatever way, it is in there now. I watched it quite some time ago, expecting it to be decent enough, entertaining at least, because I really liked the tagline and the premise seemed fun, though I have learned to stay away from a lot of "technology killing" horrors over the past few years now, and I remembered before I watched it again recently that I hated it the first time I watched it, a lot, and it was very negatively reviewed as well. Watching it again confirmed my feelings. The film itself is just entirely ridiculous and absurd from beginning to end with a horrible storyline and lame performances and "thrills". There is zero to none interesting scenes that make the viewer feel creeped out or enticed in any way, and the whole film is a joke within itself. I especially hated the ludicrous characters and twists, and also the way the story was executed in a poor manner, not being able to stay with one main idea for too long that it is infuriatingly annoying to watch the plot, what plot there is at least, unfold. The movie resembles a little diddy of a film titled "Ringu/The Ring" an awful lot, though both of those renditions are spectacular and this pales entirely in comparison, and even though there are some nice settings in this movie, that is really and truly the only plus side to it. There are many noticeable errors and plot holes, the dialogue is, for our inconvenience, not as laughable as one would hope, but corny enough to get a few giggles now and then, especially some of the deliverances from the female lead, and the climax/ending is not anywhere near heartracing or interest sparking, just bland and hardly tolerable. There are many useless scenes of violence that have no importance whatsoever except to try and get a rise in the viewer, which was not accomplished in my situation, and a lot of material is just thrown in there randomly, which goes back to how I stated it is poorly executed and extremely mediocre. My summary pretty much warns anyone and everyone away from this movie, unless you are a masochist and want to be put through this pain.