Disturbia (film)
Disturbia is a 2007 American psychological thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso, written by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth, and starring Shia LaBeouf, David Morse, Sarah Roemer, and Carrie-Anne Moss. The film follows a teenager who is placed on house arrest for assaulting his school teacher and begins to spy on his neighbors, believing one of them is a possible serial killer. Partially inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window", the film released on April 13, 2007. It received generally positive reviews, and grossed $118 million against a budget of $20 million. Plot. Troubled  by the sudden death of his father in a car accident, outcast teenager Kale Brecht punches his teacher who invokes his father while reprimanding him at school. For the assault, Kale is sentenced by a sympathetic judge to three months under house arrest, with an ankle monitor and a proximity sensor. Kale is initially happy with his punishment, watching television and playing video games, but his mother Julie, frustrated with Kale's attitude, cuts his TV cable and internet access. Kale's boredom leads him to watch his neighborhood using binoculars, including his new next-door neighbor Ashley Carlson, an  attractive teenager, and his other next-door neighbor Robert Turner, a single man living alone. Upon observing his neighbors, he learns things about them, and one night Kale becomes suspicious of Turner after he returns home in a 1960s Ford Mustang with a dented fender, which matches the description of a car given on a news report of a serial killer at large. Kale befriends Ashley, the new girl in town and his immediate neighbor that he has been watching. The pair begin to spy on Turner together, along with Kale's best friend Ronnie. They observe Turner arrive home  with a woman; she is seen running around his house in a panic, but later appears to leave in her car. His anger is exacerbated by Ashley throwing a party at her house next-door, where Kale observes Ashley flirting with people and socializing with popular groups from school. As a petty act of jealousy, Kale moves his speakers out onto the roof and blasts Minnie Riperton in order to spoil the party. Ashley furiously comes into the house to turn off the music, and Kale reveals he has been observing her since she moved in and is romantically interested  in her. The pair share their first kiss. The following day, Kale asks Ashley to follow Turner to the supermarket so that Ronnie can break into Turner's car to get the code of the garage controller. Ashley agrees, but is caught in the parking lot by Turner, who then intimidates her. She tells Kale she doesn't want to take part anymore, shaken by her encounter with Turner. Ronnie realizes he left his phone in Turner's car and breaks into Turner's house to retrieve it, with Kale watching at a distance. While inside, Ronnie gets trapped when  the garage door closes; Kale attempts to rescue him but alerts the police upon leaving his property with the ankle monitor. The police arrive and search the garage, as Kale angrily accuses Turner of murder, but they find nothing but a bag containing a roadkill deer. In an attempt to ask Turner not to press charges for Kale's breaking and entering, Julie goes across the street to talk to Turner. Ronnie reveals that he has escaped from Turner's house. Kale watches the video Ronnie made while running through Turner's house and he notices something strange behind a  vent, something wrapped in plastic. Upon freezing the frame and zooming in, Kale discovers it to be the corpse of the woman from earlier; proving that he was right all along. Meanwhile, next door, Turner incapacitates Julie and holds her captive. Turner then enters Kale's house, knocking out Ronnie and binding and gagging Kale. He reveals his plan to frame Kale for the murders and make it appear that Kale then killed himself. Ashley arrives, giving Kale a chance to attack Turner. He throws him from the top of the stairs before Ashley frees him from his bindings. They  then jump out of the window into the pool as Turner resurfaces. Kale's ankle monitor again alerts the police, and he enters Turner's home to search for his mother. In a hidden room, Kale finds ample evidence of Turner's previous murders, including a woman's dress and wig, indicating Turner pretended to be the woman leaving the house the night Kale and Ashley were watching. The officer who monitors Kale's escapes arrives at the scene but Turner breaks his neck. Meanwhile, Kale stumbles upon the decaying remains of murder victims, as well as their driver's  licenses and belongings, and finds his mother bound and gagged in the cellar. Turner appears, slashes Kale in the back and pins him to a wall, but before Turner can kill Kale, Julie stabs him in the leg with a dagger, allowing Kale to grab a pair of gardening shears and impale Turner in the chest with them, finally killing him. In the aftermath, Kale is shown having his ankle bracelet removed by the authorities for good behavior. Later he gets revenge on his young neighbors, the Greenwood boys, who had pulled pranks on Kale previously. After that he kisses  Ashley on his sofa, while Ronnie playfully video tapes them. Production. Development and writing. The script was written in the 1990s and was optioned. The original studio let the option expire after hearing about Christopher Reeve's remake of "Rear Window". It was not until 2004 that the script was rewritten and sold. Executive producer Steven Spielberg arranged for LaBeouf to be on the casting shortlist for this film because he was impressed by LaBeouf's work on "Holes". Caruso auditioned over a hundred males for the role in five weeks before settling on LaBeouf as he was looking for  someone "who guys would really like and respond to, because he wasn't going to be such a pretty boy". LaBeouf was attracted to the role because of the director's 2002 film "The Salton Sea", which he complimented as one of his favorite films. Before filming started, the two watched the thriller films "Rear Window" starring James Stewart, "Straw Dogs" starring Dustin Hoffman, and "The Conversation" starring Gene Hackman. They also viewed the 1989 romantic film "Say Anything..." and "mixed all the movies together." LaBeouf says he spoke to people on house arrest and locked himself in a room  with the bracelet to feel what the confinement of house arrest is like. He commented in an interview, "...it's hard. I'm not going to say it's harder than jail, but it's tough. House arrest is hard because everything is available. [...] The temptation sucks. That's the torture of it." Caruso gave him the freedom to improvise whenever necessary to make the dialogue appeal to the current generation. Filming. Filmed on location in the cities of Whittier, California and Pasadena, California. Filming took place from January 6, 2006 to April 29, 2006. The homes of Kale and  Mr. Turner, which were supposed to be across from each other, were actually located in two different cities. During filming, LaBeouf began a program that saw him gain twenty five pounds of muscle in preparation of his future films "Transformers" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". According to LaBeouf, David Morse who plays Mr. Turner, did not speak to LaBeouf or any of the other younger actors while on set. LaBeouf said, "When we finished filming, he was very friendly. But he's a method actor, and as long as we were shooting, he wouldn't  say a word to us." Music. Soundtrack. "Disturbia: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, released on March 4, 2007 in the United States by Lakeshore Records. Score. "Disturbia: Original Motion Picture Score" is a score to the film of the same name. It is composed by Geoff Zanelli, conducted by Bruce Fowler and produced by Skip Williamson. It was released on July 10, 2007 in the United States by Lakeshore Records. Release. Home media. The film was released on DVD and HD DVD on August 7, 2007 and on Blu-ray Disc  on March 15, 2008. In the United States, DVD sales brought in $35,084,232 in revenue, from 1,485,244 sold DVD units. This does not include Blu-ray sales. <ref>