FeardotCom

(2002) **

Sigh. The whole reason we started attaching reviews to this goofy contest was to weed out the turkeys for the other players. Despite JPX's negative review of this two years ago, I ventured in.

This flick is an adventure in knockoffery. It's basically one part The Ring mixed with nine parts lame-ass crap. It's hard to imagine the person who made this movie wasn't on the phone at the same time. And it's even more contemptible because it has a real budget.

After a couple people die having visions of a really not-scary little girl, a cop and a city health inspector discover the victims logged onto the same website. Wait a second...can I just revisit the little ghost girl who isn't scary? I've seen twenty Japanese movies with little ghost girls, both good and bad, and not one of those managed to fail on this level. Amazing. Anyway, you log onto this website and a woman talks to you by name and 48 hours later you die. If you have a dial-up connection, it's 72 hours.

The website ghost is the first victim of Stephen Rea's character The Doctor, a tediously chatty serial killer who webcasts his torture/murder sessions. The ghost kills people because they're "guilty of watching," even though her website is not the same as The Doctor's. You spend the ensuing 48 hours dealing with nosebleeds and random scariness, like bugs or flashing lights or the building falling apart or whatever. I'd feel totally cheated to be taken out by such a wimpy spook.

If they wanted people not to check out the site, it's easy. Don't try to deter them with the "dead in 2 days" thing, just let them know that the site will melt your monitor after delivering its opening whammy. As a matter of fact, I'll issue the same warning. Don't watch FeardotCom. Anything you think is enticing about it won't be worth it, AND it will melt your TV. Honest.