Disturbia (Full Screen Edition)
Added 2/6/2010
After the death of his father in a car accident, Kale Brecht becomes a troublemaker and aggressive teenager. When he punches his Spanish teacher at school, he is sentenced to three months of house-arrest during his vacations. Kale snoops his neighbors with a binoculars and video camera for killing time, and becomes a voyeur of his next door neighbor Ashley Carlson. When Ashley sees Kale and his friend Ronnie at the window, he tells out of the blue that their neighbor Robert Turner seems to be a wanted serial killer from Austin, Texas. The trio sneaks around his house, and Kale begins to suspect that Mr. Turner might really be the murderer. This movie has a realistic feel of how creepy it would be to have a serial killer living across the street from you and you had no way to prove it. Everything in this movie is done well. The writing, the directing, the way it all pans out. Disturbia also once again proves that you don't need a bunch of gore to make an effective horror thriller.
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Terrible Ending
Added 1/31/2010
If there is anything worse than a bad movie, it is a great movie with a bad ending.
This film started out with a Hitchcockian bang, complete with suspense, tension and decent acting. No blood. No gore or violence. Just chills and edge of the seat excitement. Though reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rear Window, it had enough originality and surprises to keep me guessing.
The film, however, took a drastic 180-degree spin at the end, turning the movie into a typical slasher-type movie, complete with a long and drawn out foray through a creepy, dark, hidden basement. Though I won't reveal the ending in this review, I will say that it didn't live up to the first three-quarters of the film. There were so many possible endings for this movie, endings that could have done the film proud.
At least if the movie is bad, we can shut it off, sparing us a wasted two hours. But when the movie is good and it leads us by the nose to a horrible, cheap finale, it leaves the viewer frustrated and disappointed.
Rent it before you buy, but don't expect a satisfying end. It simply isn't there. It might even leave you a bit nauseous.
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Good plot, and action.
Added 11/20/2009
When I ordered this film, I was really not sure it was my kind of film. I was surprised.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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the creep next door . . .
Added 9/13/2009
Directed by D. J. Caruso, Disturbia (2007) is an engaging teen thriller, that has an attractive cast, and a story that kind of works until the writers try to get too cute. With the main character trapped in a house gazing through a pair of binoculars, we have sort of a contemporary teenage twist on Rear Window, although with much more aggressive killer.
Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) is serving home detention for slugging his teacher. The transmitter on an ankle bracelet, keeps the seventeen year old from leaving the boundaries of his suburban yard. With lots of time on his hands, he takes to spying on his neighbors, particularly Ashley (Sarah Roemer), a hot blonde that has just moved in next door. Before long Ashley, and Kale's friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) are engaged in the surveillance of neighbor Robert Turner (David Morse), a mysterious guy with strange habits, they suspect of being a serial killer.
Big surprise, they are correct! And Turner has the uncanny habit of popping up where you least expect, in the Brecht kitchen after helping Kale's mom Julie (Carrie Anne Moss) with car trouble, and later at the window of Ashley's car. What happens is fairly predictable, but still suspenseful and funny. Turner's home with its secret torture chamber and burial vault cellar, is too much to take seriously. The killer's demise, while a little unsatisfying, is thankfully swift.
Shia LaBeouf's (Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) performance is excellent, and his career seems to be on the fast track to stardom. Hopefully Sarah Roemer will get involved in some better quality films. Amazingly Aaron Yoo, 28 at the time, easily passes for a teenager. A competent and entertaining effort, Disturbia should have a strong appeal to the PG-13 audience.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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the creep next door . . .
Added 9/13/2009
Directed by D. J. Caruso, Disturbia (2007) is an engaging teen thriller, that has an attractive cast, and a story that kind of works until the writers try to get too cute. With the main character trapped in a house gazing through a pair of binoculars, we have sort of a contemporary teenage twist on Rear Window, although with much more aggressive killer.
Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) is serving home detention for slugging his teacher. The transmitter on an ankle bracelet, keeps the seventeen year old from leaving the boundaries of his suburban yard. With lots of time on his hands, he takes to spying on his neighbors, particularly Ashley (Sarah Roemer), a hot blonde that has just moved in next door. Before long Ashley, and Kale's friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) are engaged in the surveillance of neighbor Robert Turner (David Morse), a mysterious guy with strange habits, they suspect of being a serial killer.
Big surprise, they are correct! And Turner has the uncanny habit of popping up where you least expect, in the Brecht kitchen after helping Kale's mom Julie (Carrie Anne Moss) with car trouble, and later at the window of Ashley's car. What happens is fairly predictable, but still suspenseful and funny. Turner's home with its secret torture chamber and burial vault cellar, is too much to take seriously. The killer's demise, while a little unsatisfying, is thankfully swift.
Shia LaBeouf's (Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) performance is excellent, and his career seems to be on the fast track to stardom. Hopefully Sarah Roemer will get involved in some better quality films. Amazingly Aaron Yoo, 28 at the time, easily passes for a teenager. A competent and entertaining effort, Disturbia should have a strong appeal to the PG-13 audience.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Disturbia (Full Screen Edition)
Added 2/6/2010
After the death of his father in a car accident, Kale Brecht becomes a troublemaker and aggressive teenager. When he punches his Spanish teacher at school, he is sentenced to three months of house-arrest during his vacations. Kale snoops his neighbors with a binoculars and video camera for killing time, and becomes a voyeur of his next door neighbor Ashley Carlson. When Ashley sees Kale and his friend Ronnie at the window, he tells out of the blue that their neighbor Robert Turner seems to be a wanted serial killer from Austin, Texas. The trio sneaks around his house, and Kale begins to suspect that Mr. Turner might really be the murderer. This movie has a realistic feel of how creepy it would be to have a serial killer living across the street from you and you had no way to prove it. Everything in this movie is done well. The writing, the directing, the way it all pans out. Disturbia also once again proves that you don't need a bunch of gore to make an effective horror thriller.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Terrible Ending
Added 1/31/2010
If there is anything worse than a bad movie, it is a great movie with a bad ending.
This film started out with a Hitchcockian bang, complete with suspense, tension and decent acting. No blood. No gore or violence. Just chills and edge of the seat excitement. Though reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rear Window, it had enough originality and surprises to keep me guessing.
The film, however, took a drastic 180-degree spin at the end, turning the movie into a typical slasher-type movie, complete with a long and drawn out foray through a creepy, dark, hidden basement. Though I won't reveal the ending in this review, I will say that it didn't live up to the first three-quarters of the film. There were so many possible endings for this movie, endings that could have done the film proud.
At least if the movie is bad, we can shut it off, sparing us a wasted two hours. But when the movie is good and it leads us by the nose to a horrible, cheap finale, it leaves the viewer frustrated and disappointed.
Rent it before you buy, but don't expect a satisfying end. It simply isn't there. It might even leave you a bit nauseous.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Good plot, and action.
Added 11/20/2009
When I ordered this film, I was really not sure it was my kind of film. I was surprised.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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