2002
Directed by: William Malone
Written by:
Moshe Diamant (story)
Josephine Coyle (screenplay)

Starring:
Stephen Dorff - Mike
Natascha McElhone - Terry
Stephen Rea - Alistaire
Jeffrey Combs - Sykes

In a New York city that is always dark and rainy, people are dying 48 hours after viewing a website called "feardotcom.com" with expressions of terror on their faces, and after bleeding from the eyes. What does it all mean? That's what cop Mike and public health inspector Terry try to find out. Of course, in order to get to the bottom of it, they must check out this sinister website themselves.

What I want to know is, if this movie is called FearDotCom, then why isn't the URL of the website "fear.com" instead of "feardotcom.com," which would make the title FearDotComDotCom? Ah, but asking questions about this movie is a big mistake, particularly if the questions involve the words "who," "what," "when," "where," or "why." While some movies make an effort to compensate for their plot holes and inconsistencies with special effects or action, FearDotCom seems to wallow in them. It completely throws credibility and logic to the wind and makes no attempt whatsoever to make sense. It doesn't even pretend to add up to anything. It defies explanation. It gets in your face and screams, "I don't make a damned bit of sense -- you gotta problem with that?"

Stephen Rea plays a psycho named Alistair who, as far as I can tell, performs autopsies on living victims and broadcasts the whole thing over his evil website. Anonymous websurfers who watch are then found "guilty" for their voyeurism and are somehow punished with their worst fears. Don't ask me to explain it any better than that. Frankly, I think I'm giving the movie far too much credit with that brief description.

Director William Malone has been directing in the genre for awhile now on TV shows like Tales from the Crypt and Freddy's Nightmares. He directed 1999's House on Haunted Hill, a fun and chilling remake that might not have been perfect, but it was a good time. But here, Malone is working with a script so thoroughly bad, so terribly thought out, and so contemptuous of its audience that it should've been burned on sight and its author shunned forever. That it was actually produced, and with a $40 million budget, is a far more horrifying mystery than anything in the movie itself.

FearDotCom was written by Josephine Coyle from a story by producer Moshe Diamant. According to the Internet Movie Database, Josephine Coyle has only one other writing credit, as cowriter of a 1998 movie called Ballad of the Nightingale. I've never heard of it, but I'm going to remember that title — based on FearDotCom, I will happily go out of my way to avoid Ballad of the Nightingale like a pile-up on the freeway. I can't imagine anyone reading FearDotCom and saying with enthusiasm, "This should be on the screen!"

But we must remember that the script comes from a story by producer Moshe Diamant. The movie's story — and I use that word loosely, with tongue in cheek, and with all my digits crossed — bears a passing resemblance to Hideo Nakata's Ringu, which was remade as The Ring and released in theaters a couple months after FearDotCom. It should be pointed out that Mr. Diamant's other producing efforts include 2002's unspeakably awful Extreme Ops, 2001's The Musketeer, and some Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, among others. Clearly, quality is not one of Mr. Diamant's biggest concerns. Moshe was one of — are you sitting down? — 12 producers on this movie. That's right, it took a dozen people to produce FearDotCom. I challenge any one of them to come forward and explain the damned thing.

As terrible as the script is, there is some wonderful, admirable work to be found in this mess of a movie. Malone and cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, production designer Jerome Latour, and art directors Regime Freise and Markus Wollersheim have conspired to give FearDotCom a gruesome, nightmarish look that the movie does not deserve. The look is so vivid and disturbing that I could almost recommend seeing the movie for the visual treats it contains — almost, but not quite. It gets only one bloodshot eyeball from me, and that is for the outstanding, and utterly wasted, visuals alone.

It seems pointless to comment on the movie's performances. Stephen Dorff (Blade), the lovely Natascha McElhone (Ronin, Solaris), and the rest of the cast have nothing at all to do but wander around in the dark. As Alistair, the psycho with the website, Stephen Rea fails to muster much enthusiasm. Even the usually over-the-top Jeffrey Combs (House on Haunted Hill) seems to be hoping no one will notice him in this stinker. And while we're on the subject of Combs, can we get something straight, people? It's Jeffrey Combs, not Coombs. I am so tired of people posting on message boards that they're fans of Jeffrey Coombs when they mean Jeffrey Combs — if you're a fan, learn the man's name, for crying out loud!

There's never a shortage of bad horror movies, but FearDotCom stands out in the 2002 crop. If it's not the worst horror movie of that year, it is, at the very least, in the running.

[Out of a possible four Bloodshot Eyeballs.]