Voyeurism goes high-tech in DISTURBIA, a modest but squirmingly fun suspenser that brings Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW into the era of vidcams and cell phones, serving up hearty, youth-skewing portions of PG-13 violence and bikini-bait along the way. Not unlike its engaging star Shia LaBeouf, here playing a house-bound teen who takes on a dangerous new hobby, this nifty little thriller is an irreverent whipper-snapper of a movie, always staying a few IQ points ahead of the competition.

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DISTUBIA is not in the same league as that 1954 classic. But co-writer Carl Ellsworth, who scripted the nifty jet-bound thriller RED EYE, deftly updates the plot, and director D. J. Caruso (THE SALTON SEA) milks claustrophobia and voyeurism for maximum tension. (…) LaBeouf excels, as does Aaron Yoo as his horny friend and Sarah Roemer as the bikini babe who conveniently decorates the pool next door. But Kale's focus, and ours, is on the neighbor who just might be chopping up the ladies he brings home to play. The ever-superb David Morse plays him with seductive charm and cunning. And one scene, involving cell phones and a digicam, is a nail-biter for the YouTube crowd. Cool stuff. Cool movie.

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Before long, DISTURBIA (...) moves toward riskier business, turning into a youth gloss on REAR WINDOW, with Kale, in his Peeping Tom chair, piecing together the clues to murder. He doesn't have to do much piecing: Early on, there's a news report about a serial killer with a dented blue Mustang, and the moment that a car with that description pops up, it's clear that DISTURBIA, briskly paced and crisply shot though it is, lacks cleverness. The director, D. J. Caruso, has a bit of fun with cell-phone cameras employed as improvised teen surveillance devices, and David Morse, as the bad-apple neighbor, once again plays the audience with his hulking, softly dimpled sleaze, his suggestion of dominating intelligence as a mask for violence. But DISTUBIA, unlike Hitchcock's masterpiece of urban-courtyard fishbowl voyeurism, is a REAR WINDOW that never bothers to peer into more than one window.

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DISTURBIA is a trim little psycho-next-door movie that strives to be a teenpic REAR WINDOW for the Internet age. The young protagonist, Kale (...), doesn’t have a broken leg like James Stewart, but he’s geographically hobbled, sentenced to house arrest for punching out a teacher who nastily invoked his dead father. After his mom (Carrie-Anne Moss) disables the TV set (bitch), Kale begins to take in his surroundings - first the foxy blonde next door (...), then the icy weirdo (David Morse) with the car that fits the description of one last seen around a woman who never came home. One way you know that D.J. Caruso is a resourceful director is that he scares you silly with a minimum of violence and a few smears of blood. His job was certainly made easier by Morse, whose glassy demeanor and high, soft rasp suggests horrors that not even Quentin Tarantino could imagine.

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A bored teen finds that his rear window isn't the only source for voyeuristic kicks in DISTURBIA, which draws heavily on the Hitchcock classic while updating it for the 21st century. Better and more likable than today's average thriller, it should do well with suspense-hungry viewers if marketing can get past a title that, however clever, might incorrectly suggest a more twisted horror film. (...) Tension rises steadily as Kale continues monitoring Turner. Director D.J. Caruso stretches credibility a bit in his staging - how could any peeping tom avoid notice in a room with so many lamps turned on? - and the film reaches once or twice, as with a camcorder that confusingly goes "pop" like a vintage flash bulb, to incorporate bits of business from REAR WINDOW.

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