The Complex - Das Böse in Dir

Hideo Nakata, director of the original The Ring and Dark Waters, returns with The Complex, supernatural horror about a young woman that moves to a new apartment in a mysterious complex. The Complex is a weird and hard to review movie... It is very intense and very scary at times, with a type of horror that never bets on jump scares, but mostly on anticipation and build-up intensity. The problem with The Complex resides with its structure. The movie changes mood and pace too often and too drastically, leaving the audience confused questioning the legitimacy of some scenes. The scenes seem to be placed with little criteria, like a puzzle that's is missing some pieces and has others upside down. It lacks solidity, leading to the inevitable feeling of unrealism: we are always aware that this is only a movie, and that is a shame because we should be absorbed and bothered by horror films. Scary? Absolutely. Well directed? Maybe this time Nakata got a little sloppy. Visit thefadingcam blog for more!

The Complex isn't a perfect film, but it builds on a time-honored formula: Nothing is what it seems to be. 'Ringu' director Hideo Nakata is back with a thriller that may annoy you with seemingly random plot twists, changes of scene, and viewpoint changes, but stick with it, there's a terrifying story behind all the confusion. In fact, The Complex resembles a Korean thriller more than a J-horror flick, in the kaleidoscopic subjective-cinema way things are frequently turned upside down to reveal more of what's really going on.

The truth, once you discover it, is nothing really new, but its truly thriling in the way the pieces fall together (I'm pretty sure a lot of the low ratings were from people who got lost), and it's genuinely scary all the way through, and the lovely cinematography and some fine performances by the young stars help lift it up to near-Ringu status. But what puts it over the top is an exciting, compelling score by veteran composer Kenji Kawai, which keeps the heart racing.

I've seen them all, and this one still scared the heck out of me, while doing an ingenious job orchestrating the threatening power of grief and guilt in a way I haven't seen since 'Dark Water.'

I watched this film during the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2013. I had high hopes for this film, as it was being directed by Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu. It was an OK movie, unfortunately there was nothing too special about it.

The story was based around a new family that moved into a new housing complex, but the daughter, Asuka, began having strange experiences around the home, involving her neighbour & a young boy who always played alone.

There was good cinematography & Nakata did set the scenes well, building the tensions as you would expect from him. He created a sense of normal everyday life early on, while at the same time giving the audience an subtle clues that all is not quite right. There was a great use of unsettling music to add to the scenes, but I just felt like it didn't pay off, it just felt creepy at best.

The characters were interesting, with the lead actress playing Asuka doing a great job at carrying the tension & suspense through the earlier parts of the movie. There were a few typical Japanese horror clichés, but it didn't take away from the movie. I ended up feeling like I witnessed an interesting story, with the odd cheap scare & nothing more, when I was hoping for a little more creepy & scary.

Maybe you've seen this or something similar before and the story itself won't surprise you that much. But the movie is more than decent. The horror does work on quite a few levels, even if you can see the jump scare coming. Plus there is a story (even if it might feel a bit like a cheat in the end).

The acting is nice, the characters well defined. There is some of the usual things you've come to known from horror movies from Asia. If you didn't get sick of it (some people can't see another woman with long hair hiding her face crawling on the floor or looking scary in general), you will get entertained and have a really good scary time

"The Complex" does deviate a bit from the standard Japanese horror genre with some pretty interesting twists, which was a very welcomed change of pace to the genre. However, the movie was nowhere near being scary, or I am just too seasoned and hardened to horror, and that resulted in a mediocre result.

The story is about Asuka who moves into an older apartment complex, and soon after strange things start to happen which threaten to send Asuka's mind down a spiral of despair.

Story-wise then "The Complex" was following a stereotypical 'how-to-make-a-horror-movie' blueprint, but it has some interesting twists and turn of events.

The acting was good and helped the movie along quite well. Atsuko Maeda actually carried the lead quite well.

The effects in "The Complex" were adequate, but not overly impressive or dazzling. But they did serve the purpose well enough.

However, the lack of proper scares was the downfall that plummeted the movie into mediocrity. And as such, what could have been a unique movie ended up as a movie that you will Watch once and then never again.