THANKS to our hectic lives, many of us never get to know the neighbours.
 These people could be anyone – anything. Dark secrets can fester behind net curtains. Disturbia is a slickly engineered paranoia thriller sparked by the febrile imagination of a housebound teenager, Kale (Shia LaBeouf). Spying on the locals to pass the time, Kale entertains the notion that the loner across the street, Mr Turner (David Morse), is a serial killer. The youngster plants seeds of suspicion in the minds of sexy neighbour Ashley (Sarah Roemer) and goofy best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), who train binoculars and a video camera on the Turner residence. Once Turner senses he is under surveillance, he confronts Ashley and issues a chilling warning: “You’re not the only one that’s watching. Feel free to pass that along.” Disturbia disorientates us with a bravura opening set piece that we don’t see coming and director DJ Caruso sustains the tension through the myriad twists. The screenplay is well-oiled with all the usual double-bluffs and red herrings, lending a 21st Century, high-tech gloss to a central premise borrowed from Hitchcock’s Rear Window. LaBeouf is a likeable teenage rebel, well versed in sarcasm, like when Kale’s mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) looks despairingly around the pigsty that has become her home and demands, “Clean up your room and clean up the kitchen,” and Kale retorts lazily, “Let me just check my schedule”. We see most of the film through his eyes and LaBeouf ably conveys his frustration that no-one in authority will listen to his allegations of murder. Morse and Moss complement the young leads, their characters coming to the fore in the film’s frenetic final act, which batters logic to a bloody pulp. | 
