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Disturbia

If there’s a lesson movie goers have learned about Hollywood, it is that remakes of movies are rarely nearly as good as the original versions. With that in mind, many might get the hives just thinking that someone would dare to make a new version of Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Those people, however, will be missing out on one hell of a thriller that is Disturbia.

Disturbia tells the story of Kale (Shia LaBoeuf), a homebound teenager that starts watching his neighbors, in an attempt to curb his boredom. Soon he finds out the neighborhood of the quiet suburbia is not as peaceful as it may seem and that in the house across the street, Mr. Turner (David Morse), a middle aged man that cautiously cares for his garden every morning, might be the murderer of at least one woman. But not all is as bad as on the other side of his fence, Ashley (Sarah Roemer) moves in, taking part in a romantic subplot that could be spared as she takes interest in Kale’s Peeping Tom ways.

The film takes a little too long to pick up its pace, wasting too much time with details in the beginning that don’t really affect the characters further into the story. Once the story picks up, however, it is one scare and shock after another. But unlike the most recent thrillers, those don’t appear in an intricate (and most times senseless) plot, but in good old making-the-audience-jump-off-their-seats moments.

Disturbia is the Rear Window of the new generation and its typical teenager-like dialogue and over use of technology, such as camcorders and text messaging, may get tiring for anyone over the age of seventeen. While it may not become a classic, though, it has a fairly talented group of young actors that make the story credible and involving. The biggest kudos go to director D. J. Caruso, who has made the first good teenage thriller since Wes Craven’s Scream, giving some hope to the fans of the genre; and also to John Michael Hayes, writer of the original screenplay for Rear Window, who didn’t get any credit for Disturbia’s success. After all, there’s no wheelchair in this one which makes them so totally different, seriously!

Written by: Natalia Galbetti

Reviewers Rating: 9
Reader's Rating: 5.00
Reader's Votes: 1

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