Who Is Kale's Monster?

A teenager who’s under house arrest for assaulting his Spanish teacher and is actively stalking his neighbors as a pastime or a tedious older man suspected by the teenager to be a serial killer, who is the villain? Disturbia is about a teenager named Kale who’s recently lost his father in a car crash and is under house arrest. He begins spying on his neighbors to deal with cabin fever. He starts noticing suspicious activity from one of his neighbors, Mr. Turner. Kale begins to believe that Mr. Turner is a serial killer, but Kale isn't certain. The movie’s monster isn't simply Mr. Turner because he's the serial killer, it is much more deeper than that. Even though people might argue that the actual monster is Kale for immorally stalking the
He is untroubled because the monster, psychological fear of the unknown, isn't around. The movie shows Kale having a pleasant time when he is aware of his surroundings. In the movie, Disturbia, there’s a scene where his best friend Ronnie comes over to visit him. Kale is happy explaining and showing Ronnie what he knows from stalking for example one of his neighbors is cheating on his wife. In Kale’s words, “this is reality without the TV” (Disturbia). Even though Kale is under house arrest, he shows immense happiness because there is no unknown, no monster. In addition, the movie compensates Kale by giving him a girlfriend for being a stalker. In Disturbia there’s a scene where Ashley, his hot neighbor, confronts him about his stalking. Kale explains how he's been spying on her and goes into detail about how he understands her. Ashley tells him “that’s either the creepiest or the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard” (Disturbia) and kisses him, it is clear they have a relationship after this. The movie promotes Kale’s immoral spying in this scene because he was knowledgeable about her and he got to keep her instead of scaring her off. When he is aware of his surroundings the movie rewards him, which is the opposite of what the movie does when he doesn't know what’s going
When he is oblivious to his surroundings anxiety and fear kick in. This is what happens when tangible monsters appear in movies. The monster itself represents fear and there is a psychological fear of the unknown apparent in the movie. Just like we fear the dark and we fear the unknown for the same reasons. Author Arthur J. Westermayr talks about how the fear of death bases “… entirely due to ignorance of the unknown hereafter which the vivid imagination of man has peopled with countless horrors, or equally impossible celestial delights” (Westermayr 225). This fear is evident when children are frightened by new things, it’s tapping into the same psychological fear. Throughout the movie there was no immediate danger facing Kale. Mr. Turner was the neighbor Kale mostly knew nothing about. Due to this, Kale began to be suspicious of his activity even though he never had solid proof of him being a murderer. You can see this in a scene in Disturbia where Mr. Turner was moving something heavy in a bag into his garage. Kale didn't see anything else other than Mr. Turner pulling the bag into the garage and Kale immediately became frightened because he didn't know what was inside. He wasn't in any danger so its unreasonable for him to be scared. He had no reason to think of it as something evil, but he immediately thought it could be a