Once you know your http from your www, there's not much that can go wrong online. You might download a virus or be inundated with junk mail offering free Viagra, but there's nothing that's going to kill you out there. Or is there?
Picking up "The Ring"-inspired trend for techno-horror, "FearDotCom" features a snuff website (moronically entitled feardotcom.com) where a mad doctor named Alistair Pratt (Stephen Rea), ahem, slices up naked ladies for his ever growing list of online subscribers.
Stumbling across the site are a police detective (Stephen Dorff) and a Department of Health official (Natascha McElhone), who have linked it not only to the bodies of the doctor's various victims, but also to a series of supernatural incidents across the city.
Director William Malone is obviously a believer in the 'everything but the kitchen sink' style of filmmaking, since "FearDotCom" comes complete with a slasher, a vengeful ghost, an internet snuff site, and a "Ring"-style curse. No wonder the resulting mess doesn't make the least bit of sense.
Rea camps it up shamelessly, presumably to stave off boredom ("How enticing the smell of cheap perfume can be. Or is that fear?"). Old ham Udo Kier pops up for a quick appearance before adding to the death toll. And Natascha McElhone tries to pretend she's in a different movie from Stephen Dorff's lunkheaded hero (how exactly did she go from this to "Solaris"?).
There's lots of unintentional silliness, the most guffaw-inducing of which concerns a victim who conveniently swallowed the address of her killer before dying. Although, in a film where even the police station seems to have dry ice pumping from the air conditioning, there's a lot of competition for the title of dumbest moment.
"Do you like to watch?" whispers the husky temptress on the killer website. That's one offer self-respecting horror fans should politely decline.
FearDotCom (2003)
