By Debi Moore
It's a good thing I didn't do any research into the parties behind Disturbia before seeing it. Otherwise, I might have brought extra baggage into the theater rather than just walking in, sitting back, and letting the film do its thing. And what Disturbia did was entertain the hell out of me for a solid 104 minutes from start to finish.
It opens with a poignant father/son fishing expedition, careens into action mode immediately afterwards with a spectacular car crash, gives us a bit of character development and exposition, and then morphs seamlessly into an edge-of-your-seat thriller for the duration. Let's get one thing out of the way right now. Yes, it owes a lot to Rear Window, but by the last half hour I wasn't thinking about Alfred or Jimmy. No siree. The person on my mind was Michael — as in Myers — only a maskless, human version with just a dash of Hopkins' Hannibal (sans any trace of an accent) thrown in for good measure. Maybe those disappointed in the upcoming Halloween remake can find some small solace in Disturbia instead.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. What about those filmmakers? Who the heck are they, and why do their names strike fear — and, at the same time, high expectations — in the hearts of so many genre fans? Let's start with director Caruso. Does the title The Salton Sea ring any bells? It's only one of the most badass undercover cop movies ever made. Val Kilmer, Peter Sarsgaard, and Vincent D'Onofrio give performances of a lifetime. But then came Taking Lives. *shudder* Does it get much worse?
Thankfully Disturbia is much closer to Sea than Lives so I'll blame the studio for the horrendous Jolie/Hawke/Sutherland misfire and put Caruso back on my A list. He keeps Disturbia from becoming the dull, formulaic murder mystery we've all seen a million times by somehow inserting a freshness into both the lead characters and the villain. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was magic, pure and simple movie magic of the type audiences used to enjoy back in Hitchcock's heyday when it wasn't so much about box office as it was escapism into another set of lives and problems. What with the type of horror movies we've been subjected to lately, it makes sense that a throwback, seemingly throwaway film like Disturbia would be the one that surprises and satisfies the most.
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1 - Lisa McKay
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