The best stoner horror/thriller in years. B+

Disturbia is a really entertaining flick, though at the end it kind of has some faults. It really wasn't as intense as I've heard and I wasn't on the edge of my seat at all. I also didn't just once throughout any of the film. I loved the first hour with all the character development and I found it to be the most interesting part of the whole film. My favorite scene was probably the scene with David Morse and Sarah Roemer in the car, as well as the opening sequence. All the performances are great across the board, so there really isn't much of a point in discussing them because they're all about the same, though David Morse wasn't as "terrifying" as I've heard. He was interesting and sometimes intense but he wasn't a terrifying character by any means. So, all in all, I guess I'm a tad disappointed. For the first hour it was one of my favorite films of the year and by the end, I was just happy with the end result. Definitely something I'd recommend for a day out. It was quite entertaining.

8/10 (B+)

Loved it. I thought it was incredibly entertaining and suspenseful, much like writer Carl Ellsworth's last film Red Eye. Although this film isn't as great as that one (mainly because of the lack of Rachel McAdams ), it's still an incredibly smart and scary teen thriller that is better than it has any right to be.

A-

I liked this movie a lot more than I ever expected I would. It's actually kind of sort of mature and subtle. Shia LaBeouf is a real live actor, too.

Just to let you know that I am greatly disappointed with many of you, and that I'm placing the above comments in my time vault to be opened in the year 2025...

Oh, hush, Bradley. You liked Freddy Got Fingered.

I 100% stand behind my review for that film, and will be proudly accepting members to the FGF Fan Club to 2025 and beyond as more people actually see the film and recognize it for the innovative comedy classic it is.

Disturbia's reputation, if it is even still remembered in 2025, is going to be in a dumpster out back of the FGF Fan Club...

It did some of the little things right that go overlooked...humor, acting, excitement, and tension to a degree, but other than that it still had those sub-par overused elements of many teen thrillers, and while I got pretty into it at the end despite knowing exactly how it would end, the jump scares and thrills weren't really clicking. LaBeouf obviously saves it, and does a great job, and the first five minutes I thought were fantastically put together...B Not enough for it to stand out, but it is at least of more quality and better acting than its many competitors.

Alright bradley, I edited my post just for you. Though I don't see how no one else picked up the unsaid aspect of the weed usage throughout.

My intent wasn't to make you change your review, Dude. It was simply to preserve it for posterity to enable viewing it from the perspective of the far off future...

Either way, I realized my original comment was too hastily thrown out - there's been many fantastic stoner comedies since the centennial year.

Really loved this movie. I didn't expect a movie that essentially occurs in the same place for 90% of the running time to be so good, especially a PG-13 thriller. Everything works really well. Although, I actually thought this was based on Rear Window. I didn't realize it had nothing to do with it. Still though, that doesn't take away from Disturbia for me.

Grade: A- (how we get to the central storyline isn't very good, and the ending is a bit too sappy, which is why it doesn't get an A)

B+

Very solid and entertaining. Reminds me of films from the 80s and, yes, Monster House a little bit.

Also, kinda proves that Shia LeBeouf's actually a very charismatic and talented little actor.

A

Whoa, I loved it. I was expecting to like it, but not this much... Like, we're talking top 50 or 75 here, among the decades best and probably among my top thrillers, it's a perfect little movie and then some. I haven't been so thrilled by a movie in a long time, and it probably had more riveting and true scare moments for me as any movie since The Ring. Characters are all likable, movie moves at a brisk pace, Lebouf, Morse and the rest of the cast all deliver, but above all I have to go back to the fact that the movie just got to me. Just the window scenes, the suspense, things like the reflection in the tv and the video tape feed, just great great stuff, it shook me. The little romance wasn't bad either.

Caruso did a hell of a job directing this. Considering I also liked Taking Lives and consider it to be quite underrated, I think I'll keep my eye on what he does in the future.

Best of the year so far and I'll be surprised if it doesn't stay in my top 3 or 5 at the least by the end of 07.

Dreadful!

The Rear Window conceit is a good one, it always has been, but by failing to add any twist or spice of its own, Disturbia quickly became a 'glance at the watch every three minutes' experience. Occasionally, the movie paid thematic lip service to surveillance and paranoia and such, but I think I groaned each time. The logic gaps were tough to swallow, too.

Everything, from frame one, was excrutiatingly by-the-numbers. A movie needn't actually surprise me, as long as it makes me believe that it might surprise me. Thus, the mundane becomes suspenseful. But sitting through this thing going through the motions (for 2 hours!) was tough. Did anyone doubt, even for a second that A) David Morse was the serial killer, that B) Mommy Dearest would end up across the street at a very inoppurtune time, that C) following after the hour long coming-of-age set up, the movie wouldn't have the balls to off Carrie Anne-Moss or any of the obnoxious friends, that D) the presence of the douchebag cop would allow the filmmakers to guiltlessly up the body count, etc.

It was just frustrating. I wanted to scream "get the fuck on with it!" I couldn't engage with it; I just sat there, blankly, waiting for it to play out as conventions decree that it must. When it ended, I was left thinking "Was this Rear Window without suspense, or The 'Burbs without laughs?"

And that girl next door was awful. Like, $10,000 indie film bad. At least David Morse got one or two scenes of delicious scenery-chewing.

I love the attempt at more low-key thrills (although the ending tries hard to appeal to the hoardes that get off on torture and pain and such), but a little more imagination with the plotting next time, all right?

Finally! After quoting all those other reviews purely for infamy, here's a review for which I can honestly say:

.................................................................QFT!

Who cares?

The movie wasn't trying to be some ridiculous whodunit, the fact that it was obvious David Morse was the killer was intentional.

And I bet if it *had* turned out David Morse wasn't the bad guy, you might've bitched some more about the unoriginality.

How would David Morse not being the serial killer exhibit a lack of originality? In pretty much every Rear Window knock off ever made, the suspicious neighbor is a killer.* And there's always that last minute red herring to make us think he's innocent, too. Any approach slightly off the beaten path would have pleased me, as the movie contained not a single contrivance that couldn't be spotted reels away.

*- Well, except that Simpsons episode. Flanders didn't really kill Maude.

So I'm guessing you would've preferred an ending where Shia LaBeouf's split personality is actually the one killing people and he's unable to comprehend that because he doesn't realize he has multiple personalities?

No. I can't deal with any more split personality killer films either. You'd think that after Identity, they would have learned...

But at least then I would have left the theater laughing with a 'what the fuck' grin, rather than mopey and tired and bored.

Yoshue... dead to me.

Like Libs said whether or not David Morse was the murderer was the not the point. Hell, in Rear Window it's pretty clear that the creepy man across the way is the murderer too.

The point was the belief or disbelief that a serial killer actually lives next door, and above all the fun and suspense of getting to the ending, not the ending itself.

The suspense and intensity in this film or wasn't from wondering what will happen next, it was from scenes like Morse being reflected in the tv, the garage, etc. It was good ol thrilling and scaring fun.

I put Disturbia very much in the horror genre, it makes me sad that people aren't considering it one because of the lack of blood or possesed asian girls. David Morse is a slasher villain, and a very good one at that too, as all his scary charm is that on the surface he was just a regular guy living next door.

I am quite anxious to see this after a lot of positive WoM.

woah!... way better than i expected it to be. Its highly entertaining. Im really liking Shia LaBeouf.

B+

It was a decent enough re-imagining of Rear Window, but it really didn't change enough to avoid falling into cliché and predictability. Everything was telegraphed from the word go. Even so, I still enjoyed it enough: it was tense and creepy and genuinely scary at times, and the characters were likeable enough (if rather unrealistic). The touches of modernity were a little too obvious, and will almost assuredly date the film in another fifty years or so, and the romantic subplot was pretty silly, but the main serial killer story was involving enough. The girl next door was pretty terrible, though; she didn't over- or underact, but it's almost like she had no idea how to act at all. Shia was pretty good, though. It's an okay little thriller, but not one that's gonna be remembered for very long.

Oh I hated this.

D