Sick Product of a Sick System

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Not a bad made for TV movie (1993) directed well by Brian Grant and written by Dyanne Asimow. Ms. Asimow did well with her material and gave the viewers another angle on rape and rapists. Interesting viewpoint where the rapist didn't come from a messy childhood but did it for the thrill and because he could get away with it. One by one the victims live in one apartment complex, hence the title, and are at the mercy of a possible rapist living amongst them in the same building. Makes for good suspense. The dialog was pretty good and Grant's direction gave the right amount of tension needed.Hart Bocher, a very handsome guy, plays a cop who lives in the same building searching out the rapist with a vengeance as his wife was at one time a victim of rape before she married the cop. Bocher has some wonderful moments as to how he accepts the news of his wife's early rape, not knowing about it before they were married. How he takes the news and proceeds to live with it is wonderful work by this good looking young actor. I remember him in DIE HARD as the guy who thought he was cool and tried to get the hero to give up ending up being killed in the attempt.Joe Don Baker plays another cop and gives his usual tough guy humor in the role but really nothing else. Although I thought the role he played was well written. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the leading lady played by Chelsea Field. First I thought she looked years older than Bocher. Secondly, her make up made her look hard and almost like a woman of the streets. Then wearing that tight revealing dress to a party knowing there's a rapist in the area. That was just stupid. And after telling us the time she was raped she did the same thing, wore a tight dress to attract attention. Not a good idea. Her acting was a bit over the top. I certainly feel in all the Hollywood beauties, there could have been a better choice to play opposite such a handsome leading man. Sorry, just this observers opinion.

**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.