Strangers Online DVD Movie Review
Strangers Online DVD Movie Review
Directed by John Huckert, starring Noel Palomaria, Monique Parent, Victoria De Mare, and Linnea Quigley
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Strangers Online begins with a promising enough opening credits sequence which shows a little bit of ingenuity by incorporating the subject matter into the presentation… but I have a feeling that had more to do with the titles designer than the writer / director of this cheap mess of a movie I only wish I'd remained a stranger to.
Once the names have all rolled, it's time for the so-called story to take center stage. In a flurry of terrible acting, we meet the hosts on an online radio show as they perv on the "guests" who get naked on their webcams, then we segue into the meat of the plot with the introduction of our hero, Hollace Parker (Noel Palomaria), whose girlfriend was murdered shortly after having had sex with him. She says "I love you," he steps into the shower, and next thing you know, she's lying dead of a stab wound.
Unsolved four years later, but suspicion still squarely on him, Parker is trying to get on with his life and is dating again — Laura (Eva Frajko) is young, beautiful and sweet, but without the help of his psychiatrist (Monique Parent), it would be impossible for the bereaved man to cope.
Still, the dejected DJ's gotta do what he's gotta do (most of which involve awkward, poorly lit, mechanical boink scenes which are painful to watch — or, at least, I think they would be, had I not fast-forwarded through them) and so does the taunting "heckler" who sends creepy videos of himself, masked and anonymous. As Strangers Online tries to build mystery and suspense, all it does is lie there all misery and pretense. Stale smoke and mirrors, simulated sex, manufactured murder, and cardboard cutout characters… Strangers Online is hardly the "erotic thriller" bill of goods it's being sold as.
OK, so there isn't anything in the way of sexiness here… how about the thriller (horror) aspect? Strike two! Static scenes as imagined through webcam, phone cam, and surveillance video in grainy shades of blah certainly don't help the tension level any. Strangers Online has about as many thrills as a Dick and Jane book and is as scary as staring at a brick wall.
In sum all I can say is, Linnea Quigley must have one hell of a car payment to put her name on this clunker.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson