.com for Murder (2002)

Dear God, where on Earth do I start with this movie? Let's just tally the damage here. Prepare yourself: “.com for Murder” is a direct-to-video horror flick about a cyberstalker directed by a 71-year-old dude of Greek descent that stars Roger Daltrey (the lead singer of The Who) and Huey Lewis (Huey Lewis and The News).

You may need to read that sentence multiple times in order to soak it all in.

Your natural response to that statement is probably “WHAT THE FUCK?” and “.com for Murder” delivers on that promise to a profound degree of “WHAT THE FUCK”-itude. Simple viewings of this film may cause grown men to weep tears of sorrow and flee the room like a little girl who had just witnessed her mother get executed.

Surprisingly, this isn't going to be an entirely negative review. It's certainly going to be a manic review, but “.com for Murder” does have a small number of redeeming qualities. However, when one watches “.com for Murder,” any sense of “bad” or “good” is instantly numbed away. This movie is hideously aggressive in how it sucks you in, hits you across the face with a 2x4, and renders you completely desensitized to reality as it drags you into its relentless world of “WHAT THE FUCK.” Don't believe me? After reading this, do you dare believe that “.com for Murder” is not nine million times worse than I'm attempting to describe?

Well, fine, let's dive right into a world of acid trip visuals, pointless poetry recitals and Satanic chat rooms. You asked for it, now here it is.

Picture this: a tacky high-tech mansion that looks like something Stephen Hawking would buy if he won the Powerball Lottery. The radio rambles off an advertisement for American Love Online as the camera pans out to the backyard of said mansion where Ben (Roger Daltrey) is pushing Sondra (Nastassja Kinski), his wheelchair-bound wife, out to the patio. "It's a beautiful evening. Don't spend it surfing the web,” Ben mouths off to Sondra. “If you get bored, watch a movie.” (HAH!! GET IT?!!)

After these establishment shots, a cut to something so drastically different I initially thought my DVD copy was damaged: dead fetuses in jars. The scene pans out and we are now in the abode of our antagonist, Werther (Jeffery Dean). The fact that we cut from a mansion to dead fetuses in jars is pretty indicative of who's going to be the show-stealer here. To clarify, none of the actors actually look like they're trying to act; however, among a slew of utterly under-acted characters, Werther is easily the funniest, most enjoyable character. The visual I've provided here is just the beginning.

Conveniently, Ben has a business meeting over the weekend, leaving his wheelchair-bound wife behind with only her sister Misty (Nicollette Sheridan) to help house-sit his completely artificial-intelligence-driven mansion. Instead of pointing out that she and her sister have no idea how to operate his billion-dollar cybermansion, Sandra shrugs it off and logs onto American Love Online to take a look at Ben's internet-sex habits.

Thus a central piece of the film's unintentional humor begins. As we watch the chat room unfold (the chat server seems to be hosted on some kind of Win95 prototype), every single text entry is dictated to us verbally by a slew of voices that sound as though they were recorded in a running washing machine. For those of you who know your audio jargon, the primary effects that are applied include heavy reverb, pitch-shifting and ring modulation. This humorous aspect of is better experienced by watching the movie, but the dialogue in the chat room is just as hilariously absurd on its own.

While attempting to learn more about an internet fuck-buddy Ben has, Sondra angers the (in-pursuit) Werther and he uses his hacker skills to bomb the room with a giant, superimposed “LEAVE HER ALONE.” Instead of realizing this is a glaring red flag, Sondra keeps going and, before long, discovers that Werther is a cyberpredator who broadcasts his crimes live online. Sondra and Misty take it upon themselves to stop him.

The rest of the movie is mostly comprised of typical underwhelming action/suspense sequences. Therefore, allow me to switch the focus back to the unintentional comedy angle. And as for the best of that unintentional comedy, let's do as the movie does and hone in a lot on Werther.

A clearly disturbed maniac (even by the standards of maniacs), Werther displays many psychotic mannerisms that come through as more amusing than anything. Obsessed with the poetry of the late Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), there are several scenes where the villain can be found monologing prolonged passages to both himself and others, often accompanied by dramatic piano music. On top of this, he is stricken with regret about his crimes, as characterized by a number of hallucinations he experiences while on the run. Even these are done with enough of an over-enthusiastic flourish to make anybody laugh out loud. Werther exists in his own little world in “.com for Murder,” and his sheer overacting is better watched than dictated to you. This is a character that you have to see to believe.

Yet another source of humor (and perhaps the area where this movie really shoots itself in the foot) is just how seriously it takes itself. For the duration of every laughable moment, you can tell that 71-year-old producer/director Nico Mastorakis genuinely believes he is creating something profound. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the man by saying this, but I firmly believe that “.com For Murder” is a video documentation of Mastorakis' rapidly deteriorating mental state in his old age. I know that this statement seems a bit below the belt, but honestly... how else could you describe a movie where twenty-thousand volts of electricity do not kill a man? How else could you describe a movie where internet chat rooms seem to be possessed by prepubescent demons? How else could you describe a movie where the antagonist inexplicably dons a freakin' Wishbone eye tattoo throughout? It's clearly evident that “.com for Murder” is a result of a combination of old age and extreme ignorance of internet culture.

Being the small niche that it is, the cyber-horror genre tends to churn out consistently excellent movies, such as: “Strangeland,” “Hard Candy” and “Untraceable.” However, “.com for Murder” is bull's-eye proof that if a movie's director has no idea about the true nature of the topic at hand, then the chances are that an unspeakably ridiculous work will ensue.

It absolutely confounds me that Daltrey volunteered to be in this. “.com for Murder” is a pinnacle of “lack of quality control” and when I think “quality control,” the very first person I'd think of would be Roger Daltrey. The man headed a pivotal 60's rock'n'roll group whose stellar recordings hold up to this very day – even in lieu of the other bands they had to compete with during that era (e.g. The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, The Beach Boys, etc.) What the fuck is he doing in a movie where the most dramatic scene is nothing more than laughable?

I simply can't believe that “.com for Murder” was released as-is. Honestly? No quality control? Not a single person stopped Nico on the set to say “...Dude, can I have a word?”

As Cinemartyr gets off its feet, I'd like to introduce a new concept to the site: awards. Said awards will be given rarely, and not necessarily to the worst movies presented -- ".com for Murder" is a guilty pleasure, to say the very least. Rather, awards will be given to films that are riddled with unusual features that are absolutely impossible to ignore.

Thus I give ".com for Murder" Cinemartyr's very first award: the "What On Earth Were They Thinking?" award. This particular award will be given to movies that are explicitly serious and self-aware, yet are so brain-rottingly awful that their existence is incomprehensible. ".com for Murder" meets these requirements in spades, so I'd like to give my personal congratulations to all who were involved in the creation of this... ...film!! YAYYYYYY!!!!