Disturbia July 14, 2007

Disturbia is somewhat of a remake of the 1955 HItchcock classic 'Rear Window' with a climatic third act that seems inspired from 'The Silence of the Lambs.' Like Rear Window it involves a charachter, who becomes bored out of his mind and ends up spying on his neighbors and then becoming more and more suspicious of one in paticular, who seems to have murdered someone. The main differences is that the Jimmy Stewart characther is now the teenage Shia Lebeouf. It is not a broken leg that incapacitates the hero but a house arrest. And the bad guy isn't an ordinary man who commits a single murder, but an actual serial killer, who has killed before and is out there killing again.
This last difference makes the new Disturbia not just an action/drama like 'Rear Window' but more of a horror film. It isn't just suspenseful, it's scary and at the end somewhat gruesome. 
This is another fine movie that Shia Leboeuf can add to his resume. He earns breakthrough credibility I'd say. For most of the movie, it is a one man show, and that one man show is about a kid being bored. I, myself, wasn't while watching him, and this carried on for about half of the movie. Shia is great to watch, and in this movie he's proved he can carry a movie almost by himself. He does a great job of drawing a complete character into the story, making the felon he is sympathetic and understandable. There is a great scene when he is finally confronted about his spying by the girl next door, and the way it is handled makes what could have been an awkward/clumsy/creepy moment into oddly touching. Shia also has a great knack for little details. Take for instance the time when the girl comes over for the first time. She's standing in the doorway, and Shia can't look at her for more than a couple seconds. He has trouble keeping eye contact because he thinks if she catches him looking at her then he'll be caught, but then he remembers that this time he's supposed to be looking and looks back. The entire scene he can't quite make up his mind whether to actually look at her or not. Again when he's walking her back to her house, he holds out his hand as if too hold hands with her, but then takes it back before she can realize the offer has been made. The mixed and awkward feelings of being a friend with a person who's privacy has been invaded are presented without a slipup. LeBouf is one of the best young actors out there. 
I've got only one discrepancy with this movie, and it's the girl. This has mostly to do with that oddly touching scene in the middle of the film, where Shia describes the girl as doing things like reading actual books, and other interesting intelligent things. There's nothing wrong with this scene except for the fact that it doesn't describe what we've seen of the girl. From what we've seen she spends her time undressing in front of an open window, doing yoga in her room, and swimming in a small bikini. When she comes over to talk to Shia, she has a sexy disposition around her. Like a 'make the boys feel awkward' attitude, what have you. So who is she really? The intelligent interesting girl, or the neighborhood sexpot? Not that there's anything wrong with a sexpot, just if you're going to describe a girl as being somewhat intelligent or interesting there should be less gratuitous shots of her glistening ass and more scenes of her actually reading, cracking a clever joke, or I don't know, finishing a crossword puzzle. Maybe using physics to time a jump from her roof into the swimming pool on a bicycle she built with only raw materials she found in her backyard. You know something interesting.

It seems to me when someone actually makes a good horror movie, and boy is that rare, then it ceases to be a horror movie. It turns into a drama or a psychological thriller or something. I think a movie actually has to be inferior to be considered within the horror genre. I consider this movie to be more of a drama/thriller.