feardotCom (2002)

feardotCom (2002) (see below for preview images)

Directed by William Malone
 
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone and Stephen Rea
 
This was a movie that was a rollercoaster, turning from good to bad and back to good in a matter of seconds. There were a lot of parts that made sense and would have made a good horror movie.  
 
Basically, a cop renews his chase in a serial killer that uses the internet to stream his torturous kills.  In addition, anyone who logs onto this feardotCom website dies in 48 hours. That’s the part that could have totally been left out.  This whole idea that energy is distributed to humans through computer usage is too far out for this particular movie.  It’s like they couldn’t decide which script they wanted to film so they meshed two together…badly.
 
In looking at reviews online, I’m not the only one who felt the movie was disjointed and was left feeling somewhat confused as to how it all came together.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 3% freshness.  I think that’s a little harsh.  There WERE good parts to the movie.  If they had left out the whole dead kid wanting to possess people through the internet to get revenge thing it would have actually been a killer movie.
 
At the time this came out, the idea of computer networks banning together to form supercomputers and dead souls being passed through a web address…well, let’s just say we weren’t quite there yet.
 
And still, all these years later…the movie still wasn’t up to the task of portraying that kind of plot. I do wish they had decided on one or the other.  Either plot by itself, the serial killer or the dead girl wanting revenge for being killed by the serial killer, would have been fine.  But, putting them together made the movie very haphazard and disconnected. I found myself go back a lot because I thought I had missed something but, I hadn’t.  It just didn’t work.
 
I can’t say this was a good movie.  But it wasn’t as bad as a 3%.  Still, be prepared to have to follow closely and be disappointed.   It truly just left me shaking my head.
 
RATINGS
2/5 Stars