Disturbia *** (2007, Shia LaBeouf, David Morse, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sarah Roemer, Aaron Yoo) – Classic Movie Review 3030

Shia LaBeouf stars as a teenager living under house arrest who becomes convinced his creepy neighbour (David Morse) is a serial killer in director D J Caruso’s involving and suspenseful Rear Window-style thriller.

Kale Brecht (LaBeouf) is one disturbed boy. He becomes sullen and withdrawn after witnessing his father killed in a car accident and the court places him under house arrest after punching his unsympathetic Spanish teacher, so he can’t go beyond the perimeter of the garden. Kale occupies himself by becoming a peeping tom and spying on his neighbours. One of them is the attractive new girl in town named Ashley (Sarah Roemer). But one night he witnesses what appears to be a murder going on in the house of Mr Turner (Morse). With the help of Ashley and his friend Ronnie (amusing Aaron Yoo), Kale goes about investigating Mr Turner.

Though perhaps over-familiar, it is a well-handled junior-league version of the Hitchcock classic, with excellent performances from well-cast LaBeouf, Morse, Roemer, Yoo and Carrie-Anne Moss as Kale’s mother. Caruso keeps it taut, tense, tingling and entertaining. It’s a good role for LaBeouf and he’s an excellent troubled but feisty young hero.

The screenplay is by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth, based on a story by Landon. The original film studio let its option on the screenplay expire in the Nineties after hearing about Christopher Reeve’s 1998 remake of Rear Window. Disturbia’s script was rewritten and sold in 2004. But the copyright holders of Cornell Woolrich’s short story It Had to Be Murder, on which Rear Window is based, sued DreamWorks, Paramount Pictures and executive producer Steven Spielberg for using the story without permission.

However, in 2010 a US federal judge dismissed the suit: ‘The main plots are similar only at a high, unprotectable level of generality … Where ‘Disturbia’ is rife with sub-plots, the short story has none. The setting and mood of the short story are static and tense, whereas the setting and mood of Disturbia are more dynamic and peppered with humour and teen romance.’

Landon is the writer-director of Burning Palms (2010), Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015) as well as screenwriter on Paranormal Activity 2, 3 and 4.

Disturbia was filmed in Whittier and Pasadena, California. The supposedly next door homes of Kale and Mr Turner are located in two different cities.

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Classic Movie Review 3030