Disturbia

I) This is a dark mystery thriller about a teenage boy who has been sentenced to three months house arrest after assaulting one of his school teachers. Kale's father is killed in a car accident and and few months later his tutor comments on it and while Kale is under house arrest he starts to believe that his neighbour, Mr. Turner, is a notorious serial killer. One night, he witnesses what appears to be a murder going on in Mr. Turner's house. Kale becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind these murders but, after a few unsettling run-ins with Mr. Turner, it becomes a matter of life and death. The film is based on a story and screenplay by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth, directed by D.J Caruso, the film has 5/6 characters which reoccur throughout the story and these are Kale played by Shia LaBeouf, Ashley ('The girl next door') played by Sarah Roemer, Kale's Mother Julie played by Carrie-Anne Moss, Mr Turner, his next door neighbour, played by David Morse, also Ronnie, Kale's best friend, played by Aaron Yoo.

Lastly is Officer Gutierrez, the cousin of the teacher Kale assaulted but also the police officer that

Kale feels is out to get him. As most of the film takes place between two houses it was all filmed on

location in the houses of 6221, 6222 and 6227 Painter Ave, Whittier, California, USA. The film was very successful at the box office being nominated for 8 awards including 'Empire's Best Thriller' and winning 4 of them. The production company predominantly involved were Dreamworks and Paramount. The film was rated a 15 in the U.K. for sequences of terror and violence, and apparently 'sensuality' and from watching this film several times i can say that there is nothing which calls for it to be pointed out in the rating. The film did excellently at the box office quadrupling it's budget ($20,000,000) to gross at $80,050,171. 

II) The film can be reduced to an 'American Suburbs Murderer Neighbour' film. So this film could appeal to a large audience, the film is rated a 15 but as the storyline is fairly simple and easy to follow this is just because of the content, I feel that if the sole storyline was just the idea of there possibly being a murderer next door then this film could also appeal to an older audience, helped mainly by the presence of David Morse but for this they would have to sit through 40 minutes of Kale being sentenced to house arrest and him spying on Ashley the 'girl next door'. Most people would take this to be another american teen film which severely closes down the audience but actually this is a fantastic thriller that doesn't really focus on the teen romance side of it as a main storyline. I also believe that the film would appeal equally to males and females, basically because, stereotypically males may watch 'girly' films for the attractive females, similarly here the males would watch this for the action and (After asking several female friends) for Shia Labeouf's performance, but of course this is a stereotyped and speculative view to hold.


Looking at User Reviews Disturbia's IMDB page I found that with a rating of 6.9 this film has a 
largely successful following and I have picked one good review and one bad at random.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Surprisingly Good!, 20 September 2007

Author: willpbudd from United Kingdom

I came into the movie theatre with no high hopes. I went in thinking it would be just another Hollywood thriller with regular Jump Scares and a weak script. Disturbia was really good. Its not an amazing work of art and will probably be forgotten in 4 years time. Disturbia is one to watch with your friends on a Friday/Saturday night. The casting isn't amazing and i did get sorta annoyed with Sarah Roemer. Shia LaBeouf is amazing in this movie and i think its maybe his best acting role to date. Disturbia keeps you going throughout and i rarely got bored. Im glad the movie didn't keep making you jump too much (like 1408). I give this movie 8 stars as its definitely my thriller of the year. So go buy your tickets!!!

I think what this film struggled with most was that people would go into it with low expectations (as this review highlights) but this does mean that with most of the reviews I saw a lot of people were surprised with the quality of the acting from LaBeouf who still saw him as Louis from Even Stevens which while critically good, did portray him as an immature naive character. The reviewer liked that way the film didn't classify itself strictly to the horror or crime genre, for instance they liked the way the film wasn't just 'jump scares'. But then again it wasn't 'tame' when it came to jumping either.

Here is another review:

30 out of 46 people found the following review useful:
I am outraged that this trash has gotten good reviews!, 7 August 2007

Author: Shelly Alexandre from Seattle, Washington

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I hated this movie! I don't care what kind of star power you have ( if you can even call the kid from "Even Stevens" a star), how much money you have, or how well your movie is made, if the script is bad you have nothing. Disturbia is a stylish, highly-polished thriller. Everything looks good, it is well-directed, well-acted, and has an authentic, modern-suburban feel to it. However, once you get past the impressive first five minutes, the film falls completely flat! Without giving anything away, the movie has absolutely no surprises. In fact, Disturbia is so formulaic that anyone over the age of 10 should be able to predict exactly how the movie ends, including what happens to every single character. The dialogue is cheesy and ridiculous, every character besides the main kid (Kale) is completely one dimensional. By the time anything that is supposed to pass for scary happened I was so bored I didn't care who lived or died. This movie had absolutely no emotional resonance. I watched it alone, late at night, in the dark and was not scared once! I have worked in video retail for almost six years. Maybe I've just seen so many great movies that this one just seems especially bad. It is a mediocre film at best. There are good performances, but the actors really had nothing to work with. David Morse's suspected killer is a complete waste of his talent. I am happy I have a job where I can directly influence what people are renting (at least in one neighborhood of Seattle). I am going to make it my personal mission to keep Disturbia out of as many hands and homes as I possibly can!!!

This reviewer was the same as the last but came in with low expectations but believed that the script was awful and the the most prominent acting came from LaBeouf, who is the reason in fact why many people wouldn't give this film a chance. Most of the criticisms come from the script in this case, she even says that ' Everything looks good, it is well-directed, well-acted, and has an authentic, modern-suburban feel to it'.

III) Technology is rife in this film whether it's a prop or even the ways in which it was used in production and throughout it's release. Firstly, the film was brought out in 2007 which means that the production team had access to all the of the equipment that we have at the moment (for the most part). The Film has it's own official website, when you open it you are greeted with a similar but different picture from the front cover of the DVD, later the trailer automatically plays which automatically will make whoever is watching scroll down and watch it.  Finally underneath that is the cast list and a synopsis of the film which is something I have never seen before. The trailer itself doesn't give the best impression at the beginning with the few couple of minutes being american Pie style humour, which involves looking at girls in bikinis and hanging out with your friends but later on the mood all changes and becomes much darker and suits the film much more in my opinion. they should have just kept that last two minutes of the trailer to have a real impact. Once you enter the site you are greeted by Kale's room and the objects lying around also act as links, for instance the video camera on the floor links you to clips of the film and other trailers. Being online also opens up its audience to much more people who may not have seen the television advert, or maybe use web services such as rotten tomatoes or IMDB more to find the films they would like to watch, they were also able to read up fully on the film before watching and able to see who directed and who wrote it which is very popular. 

IV) I'm now going to analyse the trailer of Disturbia mainly because there aren't many moments in the actual film which show off both sides of the films feel. (Note: This is not the same trailer I commented on earlier).

 Music: From the start there is a low 'chanting' which immediately gives the film a 'wary' sort of feel. the music progresses to when Kale is measuring out how far he can go in the garden, where it changes the tempo up slightly to give it a more paced feel, as if something is going to happen. This stays the same for a while with Kale's voice-over playing on top of that, he sounds excited and happy at first until it stop and the music gets more fast paced and then the colours seem to dim a little  while the darker side of the story starts to unfold. Kale's voice (and other character's too starts to become lower which makes them sound nervous and uneasy. the music then goes down to a hi-hat, which while allowing the tension to build, keeps a sense of pace. Finally there is the sound of wind rushing past as we see the antagonist brandishing a knife.

Colours: At first the colours are all bright, this is similar to the film in which the scenes where Kale is at home and before his dad's death are all rich is colour. Whereas in comparison to the second half of the film (and therefore the trailer) everything has been dulled down, this shows you that along with the music the mood has changed, so going through this film all of the areas where things are okay in Kale's life such as fishing with his father and just doing what he wants at home, everything is bright, but as soon as he starts spying on his neighbour and seeing strange and unexplained things it all becomes dulled down.

Editing: Shot lengths at first are short and snappy changed with each bar of music, there are times during certain sections early on where the music picks up pace and the shots rapidly change to keep in time with the music. As the trailer moves on shots become longer and longer so as to build up tension and just when it's gone on just too long the trailer ends.

V) when it comes to social groups, there are only one or two subtle references to this, firstly there is the stereotypical view that Kale is living in a 'perfect little suburban bubble' which is broken by the idea of a murderer living next door, this is almost an attempt to break the stereotype. the second could be that it just so happens that the teacher that Kale punches was of Spanish decent and therefore it could be that a part of the violence in the film could be racially caused (Obviously it isn't but this could be subtle hint from the film makers). Lastly women in the film for the most part seem to be shown as a little 'ditzy' and unaware, for instance all of the victims in this film are female, which gives the impression that it seems females are the only ones whom are easily captured, similarly the main female character was not permanently captured but she was the only main character to be isolated by the antagonist.

Thriller conventions: The main point of this film is about a boy who is 'trapped' within his house which is obviously a main convention, also the idea of him not being able to escape. There are red herrings throughout such as the deer which the antagonist claim to have hit with his car which the protagonist originally thought to be a body, as for characters there is the psycho (Mr. Turner) the detective character (Kale) and an authoritative police character played by several people (The judge, Officer Gutierrez, the woman who fits Kale's ankle bracelet). The entire of the last fight sequence takes place hidden under the house in a water filled ditch, with water being one of the main thriller conventions, the fact that it's dark and a torch is used highlights the shadows (another convention). The street is also full of street lamps, and their dull glow also gives off dim shadows too.