Seen: May 5th, 2007
Format: Theater
Rating: 7
I have this theory that the Horror and Thriller genres are essentially the same. Every Horror film starts out as a Thriller and transitions to Horror the moment we are shown, without any remaining ambiguity, the Monster. This reveal, when the nature of the things that we guessed and assumed becomes concrete, is the moment when we subconsciously lose hope, when we lose any control we might have had and are plunged into the maelstrom. We may be mis-directed or given false hope after this, but once the event horizon is crossed, there's no going back.
This edge, the transition is where the fun lies. The longer and closer we stand to it, the better the ride. Great films delay this moment, drag it out, throw out red herrings and lead up down dead-ends. Alien is one of my favorites in this way.
Disturbia does a surprisingly good job of approaching this line, and a fairly good one once it gets close.
I was prepared to not like this film. I was pretty sure that I'd seen everything interesting in the trailer. It seemed cut and dried, with a thin premise as an excuse for mayhem. And while it's not the best thing I've seen recently, I had a pretty good time.
It starts out with a bang. It surprised me. And it sets up the characters and what follows very nicely. Most of the characters actually developed. While this isn't really necessary in this type of film, it was a very nice touch. The characters were generally whole and rounded. They weren't perfect, but were at least forgivable. While I won't say this generated some sympathy that made their danger more real, at least we could identify them as something other than "Dead Teen #2".
The story builds fairly slowly. This is again, a little surprising. There's no hurry to get to the payoff. There's some genuine humor here. Not just comic relief, but cool little moments that serve to normalize the scenario. Same with some moments of personal tension. It all builds very nicely up to the moment things finally drop over the edge.
I guess the shame here is that in the end it's all pretty predictable. That's not to say it's bad. It doesn't just stop after the big reveal. But it does seem like a let down given what we've gone through to get there. Even the epilogue is a bit of a letdown. It really doesn't seem appropriate payback everything we've gone through.
In the end, I like this film. It's not going to change your world or even make your summer. But it's fun, and sometimes that's plenty good enough.
P.S. Turns out the director, D.J. Caruso, also directed The Salton Sea, a film I really enjoyed.
The Good: Character development
The Bad: A good day fishing
The Ugly: Basement pickling
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