wp_remote_fopen does nothing

I use simple machines forums and I’m trying to pull in their recent topics with their SSI.php file. If I view the file it shows me the topics. They say to use require which didn’t do anything so I was trying to use “file_get_content” which also didn’t do anything. I read that in wordpress you’re supposed to use “wp_remote_fopen” so I’m using that now and it also doesn’t return anything. I am currently using <?php $contents = wp_remote_fopen('http://www.teknetix.com/home/smforum/SSI.php?ssi_function=recentTopics'); ?> I don’t know how to make is show errors so I don’t know if there is one. If I put that link in an iframe it displays. What am I missing?