Very well executed

Pretty Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This movie was filmed in 1992 at the Asbury Square apartment complex in Dunwoody, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta). I was living there at the time, and remember them putting up the fake "Woodside Complex" sign. (I thought that it was funny that they would actually call it "complex" in its actual proper name, since that word is usually just used to generically describe any vaguely maze-like structure. I suspected that it was called that so that people would more easily get the reference to "Complex of Fear." I guess that sounds better than "Townhomes of Terror" or "Apartments of Avarice.") The "complex" had just recently opened, and several of us tenants would watch the filming from our balconies.

**SPOILERS** Documentary-like crime thriller about a masked rapist on the loose at an, what at first seemed like, safe and crime-free condominium, The Woodside Housing Complex. A place where you can keep the doors of one's apartment and car unlocked with no fear at all of them being broken into and stolen.Moving in with his wife Michelle,Chelsea Field, from Michigan policemen Ray Dolan, Hart Bochner, gets his transfered to the Fulton County PD. There Ray's put on patrol outside of the apartment complex that he's living in. Within a week after the Dolan's moved in there's a rape at the complex that gets the tenants there very scared and immediately start to demand extra police protection. The rapes continue with Ray assigned by his boss Det. Frank Ferral, Joe Don Baker, to the apartment complex as one of the cops on the task force to catch the rapist. On the grounds outside the complex Ray spots the rapist and after a long chase he eludes him inside the condominium. This convinces Ray, and Det. Ferral, that he's living among the people that he's been terrorizing all these weeks. The chase and not capturing, or shooting, the rapist also has the tenants in the complex angry with Ray for letting him get away. There's another revelation that comes out later that has Ray feeling a lot like the husbands that had their wives raped. It has to do with Michelle, who's been keeping this secret from him ever since they were married. Michelle reviled it to him in order to gain sympathy and understanding for her almost destroys their marriage. Pretty good thriller with Officer Dolan fighting his own demons as well as trying to catch the serial rapist at the same time. The rapist who can be anyone in the complex engages in a number of vicious and brutal assaults. The last on a helpless woman as her young six-year-old son that is locked in the bathroom. The little boy crying for the rapist not to hurt his mom is about as shocking and disturbing as anything you'll ever seen in a R-Rated motion picture. What's even more disturbing about that scene is that "Complex of Fear" is a made-for-TV movie.Good detective work on the part of both Officer Dolan and Det. Ferral finally has the rapist tracked down just as he's about to strike his next victim Dolan's wife Michelle. A key piece of the evidence that eventually exposes the rapist is what football team he likes. It turns out that rapist comes from Chicago. H's a big Chicago Bears fan.Joe Don Baker as Det. Ferral is at his usual folksy best as the seasoned lawman who's a lot more clever and effective then you would have first thought and methodically piece's all the clues together to finally come up with who he rapist is.Hart Bochner, with a mustache, looks like a young Robert Taylor and is also very effective in his role as not only a dedicated police officer but a man who's troubled about himself in his work as a cop. Beautiful Chelsea Field as Michelle Dolan is excellent as the wife of a cop who at first thought that she could confide in him. It turns out that her husband Ray completely fall apart and doubted his own competence as a man and a husband.Ray was used to seeing this, rape,happening to people that he comes in contact with in his work in law enforcement every day. The act that it happened to his wife in a strange way make him a better, and caring, person. Not only to the rapist victims in the housing complex but to her,Michelle, as well.

There's nothing terribly wrong with this movie, and there's nothing that lifts it out of the ordinary. The acting is generally competent, the direction proficient, and the apartment complex that provides the main (almost the only) setting for the story is attractive in its own quietly Southern garden apartment way. It looks like Myrtle Beach or someplace, but there is a brief shot of a much larger city, so who knows?It should hold your interest, but somehow, though, it doesn't really click. After the first couple of rapes, the handsome Hart Bochner's wife (Chelsea Field, a conventionally beautiful knockout) confesses to him that she was raped before they were married. Instead of being sympathetic, he comes up with, "Why didn't you tell me before we were married?" And mutters, "Makes me wonder what else I don't know about you." He also stops being, well, physically affectionate for more than three weeks. The issue of the hypermoral cop who can't forgive what he perceives as his wife's misbehavior is lifted out of "Detective Story" and the issue is left unresolved after it's been brought up. The suspicion grows that the rapist not only preys upon wives in this complex but lives there himself. The possible suspects are examined but no one seems more culpable than anybody else until, in the last few minutes, the rapist's identity is revealed and he turns out to be just one of the several guys who could have done it. Thanks to the writers, though, the rapist's only explanation is that he did it because he could do it -- because the challenge was there. (That's why they climb mountains too, isn't it?) He was never beaten or abused as a child, nor does he suffer from waxy yellow buildup. This guy, though, must be one of the dumbest serial rapists in existence. He prowls around in his ski mask in the dark while a half dozen cops armed with rifles are stationed about the compound. If the cops are searching the surrounding woods, he shows up there too, leaving a pile of cigarette butts behind him. Oh, yes. He's a smoker. One victim describes his breath as "horrible." Warning: smoking can be hazardous to your exculpability. How can a man rape a woman anyway? They must be a special breed, combining anger and the use of force with sexuality -- usually two antagonistic responses. And their victims, frightened and arid, can't be much help. Many rapists claim to have been drunk at the time, but that strikes a normal person as an even more preposterous statement. Fortunately there are effective behavioral treatments available, called aversion therapy. The technique itself is simple. The rapist is shown a movie depicting a simulated rape. He wears a ring around his penis that detects an erection. He is shown movies of simulated rapes. When an erection of sufficient intensity takes place the rapist is given a slight but unpleasant shock through electrodes on his thighs. Good-bye erection. After repeated sessions the erections pretty much go away entirely, although booster shots may be necessary from time to time.Anyway, good use is made of that rather high-end apartment complex. The movies is claustrophobic, everything seems closed in and potentially threatening. We get to see virtually nothing of the wider community.It's worth watching but not worth expending effort on.

Complex of Fear is part stalker theme, and part crime mystery in this Sliveresque tv movie. The apartment building setup creates a close nit distrustful atmosphere where anyone could be the one. The rural setting works great, looks like somewhere in the Carolinas. There is some good interpersonal dialogue between couples in this movie as well. The time frame is pretty accurate to the late 80s when the actual events took place.