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Mini Reviews (September 2002)

Fear Dot Com

Fear Dot Com (September 2/02)

If I hadn't already seen the worst flick of the year (Pumpkin), this would easily top that list (this'll have to settle for second, I suppose). Stephen Dorff stars as a detective investigating a website that supposedly kills you two days after you view it. Fear Dot Com is dark, grungy and generally unpleasant to look at. And, as if the film didn't suck enough, it's yet another movie that has absolutely no concept as to how the Internet and computers work. The killer's website, the oddly named feardotcom.com, features a layout with lots of over-the-top graphics and astounding interactivity - the only problem is, it doesn't even begin to resemble an actual webpage. Perhaps someone who's only read about the Internet might be fooled, but for the rest of us, it's a ludicrous and distracting element. And poor Stephen Dorff. Once a promising young actor, this is the second really lousy movie he's been in this year (the other was Deuces Wild, though that was a masterpiece compared to this steaming pile). The real surprise (and not the good, opening-presents-on-Christmas-morning kind of surprise; more like the just-found-out-I've-got-a-brain-tumor sort) is Stephen Rea's presence as the lunatic killer. I can only hope he was paid an astounding sum of money, because he's really slumming it. Note to Steve: Stick to Neil Jordan movies, okay?

no stars out of

© David Nusair