disturbia

director d.j. caruso’s (taking lives) disturbia begins with a car accident that kills kale (shia labeouf)’s father and causes kale to become reclusive and act out in school. an argument with his spanish teacher ends with kale punching him and receiving a punishment of three months under house arrest. he has an ankle monitor attached that allows kale to reach the boundaries of the yard and if he is to go beyond that, the police are immediately dispatched. initially, kale wastes his days playing video games, watching trash tv and eating junk food. his mother (carrie-anne moss) gets frustrated with this behaviour and cuts off all of his entertainment. out of boredom, kale begins spying on his neighbours, including Ashley, a hot teenage girl who spends most of her time lounging poolside, and mr.turner (david morse), a man he suspects to be a serial killer who is all over the news. kale employs the help of ashley and his best friend, ronnie, to do the investigating that he cannot. the parallels to hitchcock’s rear window are unmistakable with shia labeouf’s house-bound kale mirroring jimmy stewart’s wheelchair-bound l.b. jefferies, both of whom become obsessed with an unsolved murder mystery in their own neighbourhoods. however, disturbia does not extend the mystery of the killer’s identity in the way that rear window does. the clues in disturbia are laid out blankly through the television reports and kale realizes that mr.turner is in fact the killer, almost immediately. beyond this point, the tone of disturbia changes and it becomes a fairly standard teen thriller, albeit a suspenseful one.

watch the trailer