Film Reviews

Feardotcom

• Rating:
• Director: William Malone.
• Starring: Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone, Stephen Rea, Udo Kier, Amelia Curtis, Jeffrey Combs.
• Details: US / 100 mins / (18).

Despite the fact that he still looks about 16 years of age (and acts like it, too) Stephen Dorff plays Mike Reilly, a hard-bitten New York City cop. After a series of unexplained deaths, he teams up with health official Terry (McElhone, far too classy for this) and investigates the strange-goings on. It seems an Internet website has harnessed a lot of negative vibes for some barely explained reason. Exactly two days after accessing the site, visitors' greatest fears consume them and they die of fear. In what might be called a plot twist in the hands of a better director, Mike's obsessed by the memory of Alistair Pratt (Rea), a killer he failed to catch some years previously. Which is quite handy, because Alistair is on the warpath again and has decided to slice up a young girl on the web. Making absolutely no sense, Feardotcom is a horror movie so devoid of ideas and intelligence that the makers believe nobody will notice if lengthy portions and plot devices have been lifted wholesale from far superior efforts (Ringu, for one). With little or no regard for the mental well-being of its audience, the narrative drifts between idiocy and plagiarism, offering little in the way of coherence, scares or shocks. Visually, the film is so grubby that it makes Se7en (1995) look like a Technicolor musical, but if you want real chills, go see Dark Water.

Review by Garreth Murphy