Two Looks At Fear (Dot Com)

By: Marc Shapiro
Date: Thursday, August 29, 2002

Director William Malone and actor Stephen Dorff had their own reasons for agreeing to do FEAR DOT COM, the new thriller that opens in theaters tomorrow.

"I was getting real close, after HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and to a certain extent my TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode, to being the guy who directs horror comedies," says Malone. "I liked doing that stuff but I also wanted to show people that I could do something different. And FEAR DOT COM is about as far away from a horror comedy as I could possibly get."



For Dorff, whose antiestablishment attitudes are notorious, FEAR DOT COM seemed the perfect choice. "I'm not a big fan of movies where the concept is the star. I always get nervous with those movies because they can go either way; they can either be incredibly effective or really silly. What I liked about FEAR DOT COM was that this was truly an ensemble cast with some really cool people in it. It also didn't hurt that the script scared the shit out of me."

The idea of a truly nasty website that offers up disease and ultimately death to those who log on does have its creepy moments. And, to the casual observer, the premise could be construed as more than a bit blatant and gimmicky.

"This is not a gimmicky movie," says Malone. "At its heart, it's a very cerebral thriller with some horror and supernatural elements thrown in. But while there is some subtle moments of humor, at its core, FEAR DOT COM is very grim business."

For Dorff, whose career has been marked by quirky, offbeat turns in the films CECIL B. DEMENTED and I SHOT ANDY WARHOL, the evolution of the script from a largely by the numbers thriller-slasher flick to a more complex, deeper nuanced film gave him the opportunity to add some depth to your basic "good cop who's in over his head" character.




"He's pretty much your typical, mainstream movie cop. Lots of passion and lots of determination. He's a pretty innocent character in a lot of ways and this is not the typical cop case. As the story progresses, he's scared a lot of the time which I felt, when mixed in with his obvious focus and determination, made him a fairly substantial and, in his own very vulnerable way, a formidable opponent for the killer."

FEAR DOT COM, filmed over a 10 week period in Luxembourg (which passes for New York in the film) and Montreal, Canada, at an estimated budget of $20 million, tells the story of web surfers who are dying in gruesome, seemingly unrelated fashion. As the plot thickens, it is discovered that the spirit of one of the original victims has taken up residence in the titular website and is exacting its own measure of revenge. When cop Mike Reilly is called into the case, he falls victim to the website's disease and it is a race against time and his advancing illness as he chases down the killer. The topnotch and, yes, squirrelly cast features Stephen Rea, Dorff and genre fave Udo Kier.

"I can't say this enough," says Malone, "but FEAR DOT COM is a scary movie that does not pull any punches. I know a lot of mainstream horror films tend to soften the edges and try not to make things too grim or too disturbing. Well, if I've done my job correctly, this movie will be all of those things. This is one of those movies that will keep people up nights and it might just keep some people away from their computers for a while."



Likewise, Dorff, whose career has been forged on the cutting edge, agrees with the notion that FEAR DOT COM travels a very unsettling road.

"This movie has a lot of weird energy surrounding it. Yes, this is a very commercial film but, unlike a lot of so-called horror films that are supposed to be scary but are not, this movie really seems to deliver the goods. It scared me when I read the script and it scared me a lot of the time when we were making the movie. I think it's always good when a movie delivers what it promises. And this movie definitely does that."

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