Scathing review of FEAR DOT COM at Wired News (1 Viewer)

Jan Strnad · Aug 30, 2002

Wired News ran this scathing review of Fear Dot Com from the Associated Press, giving it one star out of four (lowest rating):
FEAR DOT COM review from Wired News
Jan

Mark Leiter · Aug 30, 2002

An interesting critique. I read Eberts review, while he fell short of recomending it, he did have a few quotes worth mentining.

If the final 20 minutes had been produced by a German impressionist in the 1920s, we'd be calling it a masterpiece.

I might just have to check out the DVD when it hits blockbuster.

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NickSo · Aug 30, 2002

One thing that bugs me about this movie is that its called 'fear dot com'. And the website is feardotcom.com
So then it'd be 'Fear dot com dot com'

Just had to say that somewhere

Mark Pfeiffer · Aug 30, 2002

Roger, Roger, Roger. The look that impressed him so much didn't seem all that different to me than what's been overdone in seemingly thousands of hard rock/heavy metal/goth music videos, which obviously were influenced by the same sources Ebert cites.
The movie itself is a piece of crap that doesn't even strain to make sense. And don't even get me started on the "feardotcom.com" thing.

I really can't see what there is to like about it, and I totally agree with this line from the Wired News review:

It's bad in a sickening, disturbing way, with its gratuitous mixture of sex and violence.

Duane Robinson · Aug 30, 2002

gratuitous mixture of sex and violence

I'm friggin there.

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Mark Pfeiffer · Aug 30, 2002

Well, if nudity and torture do it for you...

Derek Miner · Aug 30, 2002

One thing that bugs me about this movie is that its called 'fear dot com'. And the website is feardotcom.com

The trailer shows that the site in the film is also feardotcom.com

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Mark Palermo · Aug 30, 2002

I'm not sure what Ebert saw in those last 20 minutes. This whole movie was boring as hell. And the theme of vision and voyeurism (indicting the audience for its guilty fetish of wanting to watch) isn't clevely handled as it was in Peeping Tom, Argento's Opera, De Palma's Blow Out, or even Minority Report. Here, the issue is so overpronounced that it's simply uninteresting--as Giles said "The subtext is rapidly becoming text."

Mark

Justin_S · Aug 31, 2002

I was really looking forward to this film, and it wound up being a huge ripoff of the horror classic, THE RING, and an awful ripoff at that! If you have seen the brilliant THE RING, and you have seen or are going to see FEARDOTCOM, then the ripped off elements are as plain as day. This film was quite disappoiting to say the least!

Derek Miner · Sep 2, 2002

My workup on this movie should be running at Movie Poop Shoot later today or tomorrow, but here are some of the quotes that DIDN'T make the cut:

"SLIGHTLY MORE FRIGHTENING THAN YOUR MONTHLY ACCESS CHARGES" - John Anderson, Newsday

"THIS TAWDRY, INCOMPETENT, SIX-YEARS-TOO-LATE STINKER COULDN'T BE MORE LIFELESS IF ALL ITS CHARACTERS WERE ALREADY DEAD FROM SCENE ONE" - Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWire

"THERE'S NOTHING HERE THAT'S NEWER THAN ROTARY-DIAL PHONES" - Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

"ESSENTIALLY 'THE CELL II', WITHOUT JENNIFER LOPEZ'S BOUNCY FUN BUTTOCKS TO KEEP YOU INTERESTED" - Alex Sandell, JuicyCerebellum.com

"JUDGING FROM ALL THE DARKLY PHOTOGRAPHED SCENES, THE MONEY THEY WERE ABLE TO SAVE ON ILLUMINATION WAS SPENT ON RENTING THOSE IRRITATING STROBE LIGHTS" - Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter

"A MOVIE WHERE THE STUPIDITY OF WHAT PEOPLE DO IS EXCEEDED ONLY BY THE IDIOCY OF WHAT THEY SAY" - Tor Thorsen, Reel.com

"BEAUTY MAY BE ONLY SKIN DEEP, BUT 'FEARDOTCOM' IS EVEN SHALLOWER" - Tor Thorsen, Reel.com

Andres Munoz · Sep 3, 2002

I was really hoping this would be an interesting entry in the horror category but man was this bad or what?

I usually like almost everything there is out there and I tried my best to like feardotcom but I just couldn't bring up myself to the task.

The first half was fairly interesting but then I just lost it. I'm sorry I didn't wait until it came out on video.

Scott Weinberg · Sep 4, 2002

A friend of mine had never even heard of this one. I described it as a 'pre-emptive ripoff of an upcoming remake of a celebrated foreign flick'.

Oddly enough, that didn't provoke his interest.

Derek Miner · Sep 4, 2002

When I did this one up as a "Critical Mess," I got an email complaining it wasn't fair to pick on a cheezy horror movie that only aspired to be a cheezy horror movie.

I replied that my column considers no movie sacred. But honestly, I think he's the only person I've heard of who liked the movie.

Garrett Lundy · Sep 5, 2002

It's good to know that the puppet master behind Icebox.com's The Hanged Man is doing well writing scripts for hollywood. Now if only we could get Mr.Wong:The Movie.

Alex Spindler · Sep 5, 2002

Unfortunately, this is trying hard to be a real horror movie and not a cheesy one. I did enjoy seeing Jeffery Combs in action again, but that was the only thing worthwhile.

I was spending half the film trying to figure out how Natacha McElhone could be soooooo bad in this. I usually love her work but here she seemed lost and amatuerish. Hmmm, just like the director.

"Don't go to the fear site!"
*Character runs to the computer to log on*
"I went to the fear site! Don't go to the fear site!"
*Character runs to the computer to log on*
"We both went to the fear site. I wish we didn't go to the fear site"

Seth Paxton · Sep 5, 2002

A friend of mine had never even heard of this one. I described it as a 'pre-emptive ripoff of an upcoming remake of a celebrated foreign flick'.

That is great

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Andres Munoz · Sep 6, 2002

Natacha McElhone could be soooooo bad in this

"Please leave me alone! How do I find you?"

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Seth Paxton · May 26, 2003

Well I quoted this before and laughed at how funny it sounded...

'pre-emptive ripoff of an upcoming remake of a celebrated foreign flick'

Now I know how terribly accurate this is.
I mean not just the story but the imagery too. And NO STORY CREDIT is given. As I said in the 2002 film thread, this should seriously be a lawsuit pending because changing 7 days to 48 hours doesn't hide the fact that a man and woman who have both been "exposed" to this taboo media have to find a dead girl's body to save their own lives. And where does the woman find this girl? In the water of course. And why are people being killed by this ghost girl? To get people to come find her of course. And does the man live in the end? Of course not.
Slapping together images of torture, a weird little girl, and odd landscapes that are actually clues, and Ebert calls this potentially good? Jesus Christ did the SOB ever SEE Ringu??
You couldn't make a more blatent ripoff of Ringu if you were to simply overdub your own dialog over the original film.
Girl - "I heard you die after [my voice]48 hours[/my voice] if you view this [my voice]website[/my voice]."

And yet this script was still 20 times worse than Ringu or The Ring. They couldn't even steal it properly. Some people said it didn't make sense, but it did. Its just that the scenes were stupid and full of people doing stupid things, all for the sake of having the story go the way the writer wanted it to.

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