Fear Dot Com : Widescreen Edition

• Widescreen

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. 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 visit! ors 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 ShannonA horror film whose topicality is tied to the dot-com boom is asking for trouble, and sure enough William Malone's follow-on to House on Haunted Hill turned out to be something of a murky bust. But composer Nicholas Pike's smartly understated score certainly deserves a better hearing. Working from inspirations as diverse as brooding Russian classical motifs, the baroque, and 20th-century modernism, Pike serves up a subtle cocktail of creepiness. On the c! ues "Alistair Gets Cozy/Cozier," he playfully turns the horror! -film cl ichés of creaking hinges, leaden footsteps, and squeaking doors into wry mini-concertos of dread. There are a few obligatory crashing crescendos, wailing choirs, and action cues in the composer's largely seamless melding of the orchestral and electronic, but overall it's a soundtrack that wisely relies more on spacious dynamics than on cheap jolts to paint its evocative soundscape of dread. --Jerry McCulley DVD