A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

"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.

There are good twists and bad twists. Good twists are the ones which enrich the story with surprise without demolishing it. Bad twists are of the "It was just a dream" sort and just annihilate everything that happened so far. "The Complex" by director Hideo Nakata, maker of the famous Ringu movies, appears to have both kinds of twists. Any way, it has too many.Which is unfortunate because "The Complex" has a lot things going for it. Like the talented Atsuko Maeda, who plays Asuka, a girl who just freshly moved with her family into an apartment complex. Much to Asuka's distress, she's disturbed at night by strange noises coming from the apartment next door. Not much to our surprise, things are getting worse.I liked the camera work and editing. Like, at the beginning, a few effective camera moves and cuts introduce us to the main characters and give us a good sense of location, how the apartments are placed and what the environment of the building is like. Acting is well throughout, too. As for the pace, it is a bit slow at the beginning, but that's fine since it allows us to become familiar with the characters. And the characters are ones that I could care for.Everything was going fine, so I don't understand why Nakata had to add twists, which at times felt forced and disrupted the mood. In the Ringu movies, Nakata established ambiguous characters without sudden changes. Maybe he thought "The Complex" would otherwise have been not exciting enough? Actually, I liked its calm parts.

The director of this film, Hideo Nakata, is most famous as the man responsible for Ring (1998). That film proved to be one of the most memorable and iconic of all Japanese horror movies. And one of the most terrifying. So it was with great anticipation that I approached his new horror film, The Complex. It tells the story of a girl called Asuka who moves into a new apartment complex with her family. She quickly hears rumours that it is haunted and before long sinister unexplainable events begin to occur.The first impression is that this isn't of the standard of Ring. It doesn't have the incredible original central idea that underpinned that one and made it so creepy. However, like that one, The Complex takes its time building an atmosphere of dread that culminates in a pretty intense finale. Events build up piece by piece – an elderly neighbour is found dead next door, strange sounds are heard in the night and Asuka's parents seemingly have the exact same conversation each and every morning. The latter event is a clue of sorts, as it soon becomes apparent that Asuka's family all died in a bus crash leaving her the sole survivor. The conversation that she continually hears is the one they had on the fateful morning. The very fact that Asuka is not immediately aware of the impossibility of her parents living in the same house as her suggests that she may in fact be psychologically damaged. Are all the subsequent events in her head too? It's difficult to say on a single viewing but whatever the case, the supernatural events surround a little boy who it turns out is a malevolent ghost. He was tragically killed while hiding in a bin during a game of hide and seek and he now takes vengeance on the inhabitants of the complex where he once lived. In a similar way to traditional European vampire lore, he can only cause havoc on a person if they willingly let him into their home. Needless to say, one night he is given a chance to exert his evil; the very same night that a spiritualist attempts to exorcise him in an elaborate ritual.While The Complex is not of the standard of Ring, it still remains a very effective horror film. There is some potent imagery, particularly in the latter stages. While the combination of the supernatural ghost story with the psychological workings of the protagonists mind is done well and ensures that this is a film that would invite a re-watch.

I saw this film at the Brussel fantastic film festival 2013 (BIFFF) together with nearly 1000 people. Contrary to what I am used to in other film festivals, the audience was not dead silent but yelled some comments from time to time. I have been at many film festivals, but this "participating" behavior was completely new to me. I observed this also with other films in this festival, thus it may belong to local folklore. Anyway, it was not annoying or disturbing, just remarkable and unusual.The plot seemed so simple during the first half, but rest assured that it gets more complicated later on. Don't repeat my mistake by thinking that the dying neighbor was an important issue. As the story progresses we see several hints that there is more going on, much more in fact. Take for instance the lonely child who Asuka encounters when walking through the neighborhood when she just moved in a new apartment with her family. And her observation about a dialog between her parents that repeats itself daily, a phenomenon that her parents of course deny. And there was an earlier bus accident with Asuka as the sole survivor. Take note that there are more such hints, and these get mixed together eventually. As a heads up to future viewers: it is important to take these hints seriously from the moment they appear.All in all, I found this film rather enjoyable and yet scary enough, a mixture that I missed in many Japanese horror movies I saw in the past. The growing relationship between Asuka and Shinobu might have resulted in a happy end, with everyone living happily ever after, but this is not exactly (euphemism alert!) what is going to happen. To avoid spoilers I cannot say more than to be prepared that things are not developing as you might expect upfront.