Overview: In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream! This turn-of-the-millennium cyber psycho-thriller from Nico Mastorakis (Island of Death, Nightmare at Noon) showcases the usual gleeful eye for excess and inspired casting (including rock stars Roger Daltrey and Huey Lewis) one has come to expect from the cult director.

Nastassja Kinski (Cat People) stars as Sondra Brummel, a young woman confined to a wheelchair following a skiing accident, who decides to have a bit of fun on an internet dating site with her friend Misty (Nicollette Sheridan, The Sure Thing) while her architect boyfriend Ben (Daltrey, The Legacy) leaves her alone for the weekend in the high-tech intelligent mansion he has built for them.

Online anonymity works both ways, however, as they discover when they invoke the ire of a young man going by the handle of �Werther� and find the virtual world violently intruding upon the real, knife in hand!

Nico Mastorakis takes us to the dark side of the web in an audacious and vivacious retooling of classic Hitchcockian thrillers � think Rear Windows 2000 meets Dial M for Mastorakis!

Blu-ray Verdict: I generally like all of the films of Nico Mastorakis, but I waited to get .com For Murder after seeing so many negative comments back then.

I shouldn�t have worried though, because I really enjoyed this film as much as any of his other projects. You have to remember that Mastorakis co-wrote the screenplay, both produced and directed the film, edited the entire film on Avid himself, filmed most (if not all) of the DV sequences, and worked closely with the composer ... among various other jobs for the film!

Yes, the computer screens and the technical gizmos in the film look striking and somewhat avant garde, but also, in a sense, obviously quite fake today, but I have a feeling though that they didn�t look so fake back then, which was the main intention.

I mean, back in 2002, they were meant to look visually off the norm from what you�d normally see in a tech-movie. He did the same thing for the early cyber-thriller Blind Date from 1984 where some of the advanced technology portrayed in that film actually came into reality just recently.

Back on track, and .com For Murder is very much an homage to a Hitchcock thriller, specifically Rear Window, as Mr. Mastorakis himself has since revealed. It�s a relatively simple thriller with a few plot twists, which one would expect.

If nothing else, this film has visually stunning cinematography with effective lighting and a vast array of color schemes. The visual style is very much in the same vein as In The Cold Of The Night, also directed by Mastorakis, in 1991.

The futuristic house used in the movie is very odd just to look at, made of steel/glass/concrete, with all the necessary computerized gizmos of a futuristic abode. I can only imagine the headaches of the director of photography when lighting the house for film.

The movie has a great cast too, featuring not one, but two pop stars and two beautiful female leads. The psychotic hacker-killer who quotes Goethe was an odd, but interesting touch, but I never really understood the significance of the ring around his eye though.

It was also nice to see Kim Valentine in a movie again after so many years! .com For Murder is definitely a movie you�ll enjoy more if you suspend your disbelief for its entirety, and although it won�t be for everyone, it is a cultured film and thus deserves a second, or maybe even a first viewing here today (given that it is now out on crystalline Blu-ray from Arrow Video).

Just remember it�s only a movie, not a biography of current technology, and surely not a textbook for a realistic internet as we know it to have progressed to being here today!

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
The Making of .com For Murder, a featurette on the making of the film
.com For Murder: The Unknown Story, a new featurette in which producer-director Nico Mastorakis revisits the production
Archive interviews with Roger Daltrey and Huey Lewis
Original trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys

www.arrowvideo.com