On this day in 2002, William Malone’s FearDotCom warned us that the internet would become a dangerous cursed place. If that wasn’t prophetic enough, the alleged studio interference involved with the production of the film also showed us oblivious rich guys will take any enjoyment out of it too.
Detective Mike Reilly (Stephen Dorff) becomes embroiled in a mysterious case of murder involving four bodies found in the grimy, gritty underbelly of New York. He ends up teaming with Terry Hudson (Natascha McElhone), a Department of Health researcher to investigate the cause behind them. The duo discover it could be connected to a website called feardotcom(.com) that each victim had logged onto 48 hours before their death. It turns out the site causes anyone who visits it to die 48 hours afterward, and the cause of death is inspired by the victim’s personal fear. If you’ve watched the usual J-Horror suspects from that time, you’ll have a fair idea of where this one ends up going.
The movie is unfortunately a messy, incoherent wreck with flashes of something more interesting. Malone wanted to evoke the feeling of a nightmare and succeed in positive and negative ways equally. The central premise shouldn’t be too beholden to logic, but the little it needs to have some believability is missing. The cursed site shouldn’t really get off the ground considering its setup.
It may not have been a very good horror movie, but FearDotCom has moments that echo through horror since. There’s something daringly experimental in there at times, and you almost feel like you can see the true vision as the movie reaches its conclusion. It’s a fusion of J-Horror curses with the gritty procedural drama of David Fincher‘s Seven that desperately tries to shape that into a singular identity.
Welcome to the Internet
Its lack of success is almost blatantly in part due to a severe bout of studio interference, probably born from wanting Malone to make something like his House on Haunted Hill remake several years earlier. But Malone’s other work shows similar flaws that appear in FearDotCom, so it’s not entirely down to the studio. There is at least an intent that’s understandable though.
The internet was still rarified air for many in 2002, including those responsible for depicting it in film, so there were some interesting depictions of how it works. The common point to be mined back then was a lack of understanding surrounding technology that inevitably leads to unearned fear of it being something more sinister. Nowadays we drown in hysterical reactions to technological change because, ironically, the internet has crowbarred open our skulls open to let more variants of attention-seeking dumbos into our lives as well as those voicing more genuine concerns. But then, it was just blissful, frustrating ignorance from a generation who’d not grown up with it.
It made sense then that tech-ignorant parents would look at this supposed Pandora’s box of possibility and be worried their child was going to be witnessing something unknown and evil because it was the great unknown, even to those who used the internet regularly then. The delivery may be broken, but on this level, FearDotCom utilizes the horror of the unknown and the internet correctly.
