Starring: Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone, Stephen Rea, Udo Kier, Amelia Curtis, Jeffery Combs.
Director: William Malone.
I think I actually saw this in theaters way back in '02 when it came out and was pretty sure it was a ridiculous piece of claptrap and laughed myself silly. So, here I am, fourteen years later, about to watch it for my silly little blog. I remember primarily wondering what sins Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone had committed to deserve this fate-worse-than-career-death. I'm certain I will wonder this again before too long.
Anyway, for those of you who were born much later than me: we actually believed for awhile that the internet would totally murder us all. So, tech-based horror films and thrillers actually became, like, a THING in the early 2000's. We didn't find the movies terribly convincing, though...in fact, it might be movies like Fear Dot Com that might actually have made us realize that there wasn't anything to be afraid of, except maybe that they would make more movies like Fear Dot Com.
I think Udo Kier might be my favorite C-Movie character actor ever. This guy seemingly turns up in tons of crummy horror flicks, usually lending his own always-credible gravitas to the role. Seriously, Kier is always credible, no matter what the role or how hammy he's being. He's just that guy. It's no wonder why he's always cast. Anyway, he appears here for about five minutes to look scared at flickering lights and an overly stylized little girl with a bad wig before getting hit by a subway train.
Natascha McElhone is a lovely Woman, and her American accent isn't half bad. As she gets out of bed in full-on pajamas (they match and everything, no t-shirt and stuff for this gal) and shoves her feet into her slippers she finds a dead mouse. She takes it in stride, thanking her feline friend for the present...not sure what, exactly, we were supposed to get out of that introduction, except that maybe she's an exterminator? Maybe? Anyway, we then cut to Detective Stephen Dorff-sporting perpetual five o'clock shadow, suspenders...the whole cliche-going over Kiers body, sharing some clunky exposition with his partner Jeffery Combs (Dorff is tortured by an unsolved case, because of course he is)...and then a poorly created early 2000's website getting subscribers for live murder stuff. Wow. This movie is VERY 2002. As Dorff and Combs examine some guys apartment, it's filled with grungy lighting and...well, grungy everything, really.
The first thing our Detective does when discovering a body in a bathtub is stick his hand in the water and touch the corpse. Nice thinking, Detective. Anyway, because victims are apparently bleeding from the eyes, Natascha gets called in. Apparently, she's with the CDC or something. SHE thinks about putting evidence in plastic bags without touching them. Anyway, they do some awkward pseudo flirting and, for some reason, she is allowed to watch what's on the video with the Detective. Why would she get to do that? She's not a cop. The folks who were bleeding from the eyes helpfully filmed absolutely every single second of their last moments on Earth-as one does-and lead our heroes to a website.
Meanwhile, Stephen Rae lures an idiotic blonde to an abandoned warehouse by saying she looks like a star and he'd love her to be in his movie. Because that's a thing that people obviously do, she shows up to an overly stylized dark warehouse and is totes kidnapped. With as much theatrics as humanly possible. Flashing stage lights and grainy cameras...then Natascha's boss acts weird and has a nosebleed so we know he watched the same website, sees the little girl with the bad wig...for some reason he gets into his car and all the cigarettes in his ash tray as still smoldering...oh, hey, it wasn't a goof like I thought. They call attention to it. Anyway, he dies of a car accident.
So, yeah, Stephen Rea torments girl on bad streaming website, where he shows his face in full view. Rea attempts to ham it up a bit up, with atypical horror criminal monologues, especially involving the "intimacy of death" and all the various elements of life that are available "on the internet" and so on and so forth. I really have nothing to really analyze, save for the silliness of a Detective saying "The only connection is they all owned personal computers" and some book on online spiritualism and stuff....and, wait, why was Natascha allowed to take VIDEO OF A DEATH home with her?! Movie? Movie? Because she did, rather than the Detective whose job it is to actually figure this all out, she notices that everyone died with twenty four hours of watching the feardotcom website....and sees a ghost in the frame or whatever...then we have a forensic programmer who takes a look at the different hardrives of the victims. Apparently, forensic programmers make a lot of money because her apartment is massive.
Okay, so if Stephen Rae built this website stuff....how did he pull this off? Like, at all? There's just...sooooo much wrong with this logic. I mean, an interactive flash site with a human woman that talks to the audience...unless he managed to PUT the ghost in the machine, but I feel like that isn't the case but it HAS been fourteen years since I've seen this so maybe he did.
Does Natascha have no other job responsibilities? Like, nothing else but to hang out at the police station with Dorff? Paperwork to fill out or something? She then gives Dorff orders, actually READ the book they found (again, excellent work, Detective), and tracks down the writer. The scene with the writer might be the only scene I've enjoyed thus far. The writer admits that the book he wrote was a "load of shit" and he only wrote it to buy a new car. But Kier apparently took all the info-that any energy, including the human soul-could be transferred on the internet. Amusingly, in hindsight, he got this idea from Telephone wires.
Anyway, this apparently leads our heroes to finally put it all together: the internet has ghosts and shit, and the ghost is killing anyone forty-eight hours after they watch the website...which, really, should probably have made the site defunct by now. I mean, how many people are going to an unlisted (presumably, if they're finding this via a metacrawler search or whatever it was we were using in '02, then the good guys just deserve to lose) murder site anyway? Jesus, I have two hundred facebook friends and, like, five of them read this blog. If a ghost killed everyone who read this blog, I'd literally never reach anyone else. Ever. Plus, I'd have ten less facebook friends. Anyway, the ghost also manifests a bunch of cockroaches, our forensic programmer writes binary code all over her apartment and then throws herself out of a window.
Out of nowhere, Dorff and Nastascha have a romantic scene or whatever because this type of movie requires it. She asks him not watch the site. He hugs her, then we see her in bed, he goes to the programmers apartment and, obviously-because promises to Women don't count-goes right onto the website. Nice work, Detective.
Immediately, he is beset by overly stylized cliches-pale, naked, ghostly women who puke up blood, medical experimentation visuals, ghost children, He is then chased by a bouncing ball. It's silly.
I feel very much like the "tortured woman ghost" is derivative of another film (or films) but I can't quite place it. It's so very specific in its style and structure: the stringy hair, the apparatus in the mouth, and so on. Like, another movie is definitely to blame for this, but I don't know which one. This is frustrating, because I want something to blame for this. Wait, did The Cell predate this? Yes, it did. Maybe I can blame that, then. I should really do The Cell for this blog...I don't own it, though, but maybe I can fix that. Terrible Jennifer Lopez performance aside-and that lousy third act-The Cell is a gorgeous film.
Anyway, after Dorff insists in his delirium that Natascha not go to the website, she takes a page from his book and goes ahead and does it anyway. She handles the horrific imagery a bit better than Dorff does...then she goes and insists on seeing the files on Dorff's cold case. Again, despite her definitely NOT being a cop, Jeffery Combs just allows her to do this. Cannot stress this enough: she is NOT a cop, being allowed to look through murder evidence whenever she wants.
Yes, a magic homeless Women is exactly the kind of device this film needed. Natascha, doing a MUCH better job of dealing with the whole crazy hallucination thing than Dorff (considering he was taken to a hospital within minutes of exposure while she took a nap and then went investigating) by talking to the Mother of the girl murdered in Dorff's cold case. After three minutes of conversation, Natascha knows EXACTLY where this girls corpse likely is (because Dorff is a really, really bad detective), and there's a magic homeless woman who was "expecting her." Then the homeless lady points to some sewer water and, lo and behold, there is the girls corpse! Dorff should be fired. What a lousy detective this guy is.
I'm getting the impression that Natascha didn't call in finding the body...and now the ghost is coming after her directly for whatever reason. The ghost keeps saying "find me" and Natascha is attacked by a green screen. Oh, okay, she did. Dorff also crawled his way out of the hospital so we can get on with the third act. He still isn't doing very well, though, while she can apparently still drive a car and everything. Again, movie, Natascha is NOT a cop. Dorff bringing her with him to arrest the serial killer responsible for everything is almost certain to cause problems for you later. But, sure, go on right ahead and search his apartment with a civilian in tow.
This movie is really terrible. Natascha is really the only thing it has going for it, and she looks like she's kinda lost half the time. Anyway, they manage to find out where the bad guy is...call Combs, who gets killed off camera. The bad guy easily shoots Dorff, too (Worst. Detective. Ever.) The killer also apparently recognizes the lipstick of the girl he killed years ago? Okay. Anyway, he has Natascha in his evil clutches and then Dorff types the url into the bad guys computer so the ghost can attack. Oh, man, seeing Dorff hit the enter button like he's pushing a self destruct button made me totally laugh.
Ah, NOW I know what this is derivative of! The remake of House on Haunted Hill in 1999 was directed by the same director and featured a LOT of similar imagery. Oddly enough, I think that film was actually better than this one. So, now I know who and what to blame.
Dorff is such a lousy cop he can't even manage to NOT DIE. You suck at this.
Final Thoughts: Other than Natascha being a sentimental favorite-she was great in Ronin-this movie is otherwise almost entirely irredeemable. I don't even think I have the time or the will to list the multiple reasons why. Cliche, derivative, nonsensical and poorly produced. Bleh.
Final Rating: One and Half Stars.
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