Product Description

Four people all died 48 hours after logging on to a website named feardotcom.com. Tough detective Mike Reilly (Stephen Dorff) collaborates with Department of Health associate Terry Huston (Natasha McElhone) to research these mysterious deaths. The only way to find out though what really happened is to enter the site itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27160 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2003-01-14
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Fear Dot Com is a total-dot-mess, but it's a stylishly graphic frightfest that horror buffs will probably appreciate. As he did with his 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill, director William Malone favors trippy atmosphere at the expense of acting, character development, and plot. Belatedly jumping on the Internet-thriller bandwagon, the film follows a brooding detective (Stephen Dorff) and a public health inspector (Natascha McElhone) as they investigate the deadly influence of the titular Web site, which channels the innermost fears of its visitors until they die of fright 48 hours later. Why 48 hours? Don't ask; Josephine Coyle's screenplay is as incoherent as Malone's grasp of narrative momentum, leaving Dorff and McElhone with little to do but look frightened and doomed. But Fear Dot Com has its moments, especially after mad doctor Stephen Rea's gruesome villainy is fully revealed, and the proceedings take on the monochrome pallor of silent German expressionism. Too bad these fantastic visuals weren't servicing a better movie. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

It's a killer!!!
"Before you die, you see the ring." Oh wait, wrong movie...Who could blame me for confusing the two films? They have extremely similar plots. In this one, no one sees the ring, but they do de 48 hours after logging onto the website feardotcom.com--why not just fear.com is beyond me, maybe cause the site already existed? Anyway, it is up to tough detective Mike Reilly (Stephen Dorff, who is always pleasant to watch) and Department of Health Associate Terry Huston (Natasha NcElhone, who is very beautiful and deserves a great movie) to research these mysterious deaths. The only way to find out what happened is to enter the site itself...pretty spooky huh??? Not really, and although not as scary or spooky as its far superior follower, feardotcom does deliver a few chills, and edge-of-the-seat suspense. Too bad its intriguing plot is never fully explored, and ended up disappointing. The set-up was quite intriguing, but the final result was one big mess. It is unfortunate because the film had incredible potential to go above the standard Hollywood "frightfest," but it does not succeed. There is no big pay-off and no logical explanation, confusing us more in the end than we were in the beginning. It falls apart from one too many ideas and plot holes you could -- and do -- get lost in. Overall there is some enjoyment and great visuals, but the screenplay needed a re-write.

Good concept, bad movie
I watched Fear Dot Com a few days ago with a friend and unforunately for me, I was the one who'd paid to rent it. The basic concept of the movie is actually pretty decent, involving a website (fear.com obviously) and people die from their own fears 48 hours after visiting it.

The problem is that the acting and screenplay are horrible. Many times the dialogue doesn't make sense. For example, near the beginning of the movie one line is "well at least we have the camcorder." The only thing is at the time you have no clue whatsoever what the actor in question is talking about. Evidently two of the people who visited the site and died had a camcorder and the investigators found it, but you don't realize this until later. Throughout most of the movie, the viewer is forced to make assumptions on their own because very little is explained in the movie and the dialogue is often very haphazard and in a few cases, utterly incoherent.

All in all, the movie ends up being boring. My friend left the room halfway through it and just went to bed. Since I'd paid for the rental I decided I'd watch the whole thing even if I didn't care for what I was watching. It really was not worth my money or time. Sure, some of the imagery presented is good, but it doesn't have a halfway decent plot to back it up with. Horror movies generally leave me with some sort of feeling or impression afterwards, but Fear Dot Com left me with nothing but the same feeling one has after watching an everyday primetime television sitcom--if even that.

Polterheist !
Wow! What a sense of deja-vu ! Was it just me or did the ghostly little girl bouncing the ball seem to be Carol Ann, lifted right out of the POLTERGEIST series? It put me in such a mood for the same sort of movie as those, that I eneed up disappointed, even though I never was a huge fan of POLTERGEIST and its sequels or their particular sub-genre of horror. Yes, FEAR DOT COM delivers even less than those. This film is muddled, sometimes resembling a supernatural shockfest, sometimes a detective story, and sometimes a cyber-thriller. And those disparate elements adhere together to make a coherent whole poorly if at all. I ended up not knowing for sure just what happened in this story or just how the title web site inexorably drew its victims into their fate. What's more, it didn't make me care that much. It's not like I missed anything I'd want to view the movie again to decipher -- just that there couldn't be anything there possibly un-confounded enough to hang in for and try to take in. It seems a worthy cast is wasted herein. I particularly hoped to see Natascha McElhone do more. I remembered her mainly from THE TRUMAN SHOW, in which she was a likable character one would want to see have a role in the story's outcome, only to see the movie treat her as a throw-away character as if we weren't supposed to care about her. But she gives us little more to care about in FEAR DOT COM, nor does any of the rest of the cast. The most memorable character herein remains the eerie little one bearing an uncanny resemblance to Carol Ann or a clone thereof, lurking through this movie's confusion. But there's virtually no light for her to lead anyone into this time.