"Disturbia"

When I first saw the preview for this movie, and knew right off that I would not be seeing it on the big screen simply because the story line has been done to death, so I waited until it came out on DVD and finally took a peek.

I’m now glad I did not spend the money to see it in the theater.

Shia Labeouf is the main character in this movie, and plays Kale. He is troubled teen who is living under house arrest, and quickly finds himself bored beyond belief. A new family with a beautiful daughter, Ashley (played by Sarah Roemer) moves in next door, and the binoculars quickly come out as he spies his new neighbor swimming in a skimpy bikini. Kale’s spying is not just limited to his new neighbor, but instead expands to include the entire neighborhood.

One of his neighbors Mr. Turner (played by David Morse) starts displaying odd behavior, and Kale begins to find similarities between certain murders that took place in another town, and Mr. Turner’s activities. Eventually this paranoia of his neighbor possibly being a serial murderer, Kale involves his friend from school Ronnie (played by Aaron Yoo) and Ashley who finds herself interested in her neighbors spying. The trio set up cameras, and video recorders all focused on Mr. Turner’s house, but the plot quickly turns sour when Mr. Turner finds out about their spying on him, and deals with the mischievous kids by giving them all a good scare.

From this point forward the story becomes as predictable as the Sun rising in the east, and setting in the West. Other then some good creepy acting by David Morse, and the occasional good scare, this movie totally flops. It also makes me sad that Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity from the Matrix movies) has now been reduced to brief clips in low budget, “B” horror flicks. She plays Kale’s mother.

While I must inevitably give this movie a lousy review, I do understand that director D.J. Caruso probably did not intend his target audience to be over 30. For pre-teens and high school kids, this will probably make a good Friday night rental, and provide for some good old fashion nightmares. Since this is PG-13 it is probably a good choice to keep the kids out of your hair for an evening, but not much more.

My rating for this movie is 6.00 out of 10.00