#25 - FearDotCom (2002)
(dir. William Malone)
A series of gruesome deaths leave the police baffled, but all the victims have one thing in common - they all visited a mysterious website called "feardotcom.com" (yes, really) exactly 48 hours before dying. Meanwhile, a serial killer known as The Doctor is broadcasting his murders over the internet. I spent most of the movie thinking The Doctor was running the creepy site but by the end I couldn't tell at all because the plot to this makes no sense and it's just generally awful.
Pretty much everything computer-related in this is super dumb and would've been really dated even at the time it came out, with a mid-'90s understanding of how websites and the internet work. In 2002 everyone knew what an internet browser looked like, and it was most definitely not a screen with a big "hot box" that you type into. The characters are all dumb as rocks too - on three separate occasions someone says "promise me that no matter what you won't go to that website" and then in the next scene they immediately go to the site. I also don't understand why the cop teamed up with someone from the health department? Like once they realized it wasn't a virus (which happens like 15 minutes in to the movie), why is she still involved with solving the case?
There is too much stupid stuff going on to pick it all apart, but rest assured this is dumb as hell. You can tell it's going for a kind of David Fincher vibe crossed with The Ring, but it is very poorly done. I'm struggling to think of anything positive to say about it... Jeffrey Combs has a small part, and he's ok even though is his character is bad. Udo Kier is in it for like 2 minutes too, but I can't remember if he even has any lines. It's fun to MST3K it if you're watching with friends, so there's that at least.
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