Peeping on neighbors through the window isn’t something to boast about, but if it helps bust a notorious serial killer, why not? Loosely based on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia remains one of the best neo-noir American thrillers in recent memory. When a teenager is put on home arrest for three months, he peeps on his neighbors’ daily lives. When one of them seems a little unusual, things slowly start to make more sense.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
After losing his father in a car crash, Kale blames himself for what happened. When the Spanish teacher in his class mentions his father, Kale punches him. Knowing that he’s disturbed about his dead parent, the Judge goes easy on him despite the charges, and puts him under house arrest. Not knowing how to spend his time, Kale indulges in Xbox and eating trash. His behavior irritates his mother, Julie, who cancels his iTunes and Xbox and cuts the cable in his room. Julie asks Kale to be more productive, and he starts to look at his neighbors through the window of his room. He starts it as a joke, as the new neighbors’ daughter Ashley blows his mind the first time he sees her. Kale and Ashley get to know each other briefly, but his ankle monitor restrains him from going to her house as well as asking her out. To add to his misery, some mischievous kids in the neighborhood play pranks on him, knowing he can’t leave the house. A few days into his house arrest, Kale notices his neighbor, Mr. Turner, is driving in a Mustang with a dent on its front, matching the description of a serial killer who owned a dented Mustang. After a few more weird occurrences, Kale, Ashley, and his friend Ronnie start to investigate Turner.
How does Turner figure out that he’s being watched?
Ashley finds a serial killer who operated in Austin a few years back on the internet. The killer prevented his victim’s bodies from decomposing by twisting and jamming the bodies in the walls of his basement. The gang grows more and more suspicious about Turner, and they see him bringing a girl from the club home. After Ashley and Ronnie leave, Kale sees Turner chasing the girl all over his house, and as he tries to record it, the camera falls out of his hand. When he tries to look for the second time, he finds Turner looking right at his window. Kale does see the girl heading back home, but the staredown worries him. The next morning, Kale sees Turner at his own house, flirting with his mother. Ashley holds a party at her house the same day, and Kale gets jealous when he sees other guys trying to hit on her. Kale takes out a speaker and plays a cheesy romantic song to ruin the party, and Ashley comes to confront him. Kale expresses his feelings for her and how he has watched her every passing moment of the day since she moved in.
Ashley kisses Kale, and they start making out, unaware of the splattered blood on Turner’s window. Ashley senses something is happening, and she runs to the window to see Turner dragging something in a body bag that is covered with blood. Kale plots to get inside the garage to check what’s inside the bag, and he waits for Turner to go out. Ashley follows Turner to a supermarket to keep track of him, and Ronnie tries to break into his car to access the remote for Turner’s garage. Ashley does great at spying, until she loses track of him. Rushing out to the parking lot, she warns Kale to get Ronnie out of the car. As she starts to drive, Turner appears in front of her. Turner gets in the car and pulls the keys out. He follows it by politely threatening Ashley to not spy on him, as he is a person who is big on privacy. He tells Ashley to remind her friends that they’re not the only ones watching. Ronnie has already procured the passcode for Turner’s garage, but he drops his phone inside the car.
What was Turner hiding in the garage?
Kale customizes a security camera to plant inside Turner’s house and sends Ronnie to get his phone and set up the camera. Ronnie opens the garage and gets inside it while Kale is keeping watch on Turner and the live feed of the camera at the same time. After getting his phone, Ronnie senses that someone’s in the garage. Kale sees the garage door closing down, and Turner chasing his best friend around the house. The camera soon goes black, and Kale runs to Turner’s house with a bat in his hand. His ankle monitor goes red, and the police arrive to get hold of Kale, not to mention that one of them is Officer Gutierrez, who’s a cousin of Kale’s Spanish teacher. Kale accuses Turner of murder and asks the officers to check his garage, and they find the body bag. When they open it, it’s a dead deer, and Turner claims that he ran over the poor thing a week ago and didn’t have the time to bury it.
How does Kale find out that Turner is the serial killer?
The cops warn Kale about intruding and violating his house arrest. Julie is worried that Turner might press charges against him, so she goes to visit him to try and talk him out of it. Kale finds Ronnie, who managed to escape when the police came. Ronnie hid inside Kale’s closet, and he gave the camera to Kale to check the footage. While checking the footage, Kale notices Ronnie running and something shining behind the air vent. When he zooms in on the video clip, he sees a dead woman wrapped in a clear plastic bag. Meanwhile, as Julie is about to leave Turner’s house, he slams her head against the wall. As Kale is watching the clip, Turner barges into his house and knocks Ronnie out with a bat. Turner fails to take Kale out in his first attempt, but after a little bit of struggle, he gags and ties Kale down with duct tape.
What was Turner’s plan to frame Kale for the murders?
Turner sits in front of Kale to reveal how Kale’s snooping on his business is going to cost him. He explains how he’s going to use Kale’s accusations against him to his benefit and frame him for murdering Ronnie and his mother. Turner wants to portray Kale as the troubled teenager who finally snapped and killed Ronnie because he was messing around with his girlfriend and slit his mom’s throat because she wouldn’t stop blaming him for her husband’s death. Turner gets hold of Kale’s hand to make him write the confession letter to Ashley, but Ashley shows up at the house looking for Kale. The distraction helps Kale to neutralize Turner for a bit, and he takes Ashley to hide in a different room. She frees Kale, and they try to call 911, but Turner breaks down the door with a bat. With both of their phones not working, Kale figures that if he could run out of his house, the ankle monitor would alert the cops. Kale and Ashley jump out of the window to make an escape, and Kale grabs the pair of garden shears he once kept in his garden to keep track of the area he can cross with his tracker. He tells Ashley to keep a watch for the cops, and he goes inside Turner’s house to find his mother.
What does Kale discover in Turner’s house?
Kale looks for his mother all over the house, and he finds the air vent he saw on the videotape. When he breaks into it to see what’s inside, Kale finds the dead corpse from the tape. Turner has followed Kale into the house, and he snaps Officer Gutierrez’s neck from behind, after he responded to Kale’s violation of his tracker. Kale finds a gateway to the secret basement, and he makes his way down, still searching for Julie. When a loose, rotten piece of wood gives way, Kale falls into a pool of water. He sees several decomposed corpses of women around him and climbs out of the pit in horror. He then follows the muffled shouts of Julie and frees her.
How does Kale kill Turner?
As soon as Kale frees his mother, Turner shows up and attacks Kale. He holds Kale by his throat and is about to stab him. Julie stabs him in the leg to stop him. This gives Kale enough time to shove the pair of garden shears into Turner’s gut, and he pushes Turner into the same pull, which is full of corpses. Turner’s karma really got him good, as he lies dead with his own victims. Kale and Julie walk out of the murderhouse, and Kale finally gets rid of the ankle monitor early for “good behavior.” The movie ends with Ashley helping Kale get his revenge on the bratty kids, and together they expose the kids to their mom while they were watching adult films. Ashley and Kale finally get to make out without a killer on the loose in their backyard, and Kale flips the bird at Ronnie, who shoots a video of them kissing.
