1408: What The Hell Happened?!

I wonder how they'll pad out a ten-page short story to feature-length movie. I like that story, too, so I hope this doesn't suck. (Samuel L. as the manager has to be one of the oddest casting choices I can think of.)
 
Film Review: `1408' Worth Checking in To

A Stephen King adaptation about a guy alone in a hotel room with some foul presence and a bunch of lost souls sounds like the low-rent version of the author's "The Shining" which had an entire resort hotel in which evil could roam.

Yet "1408" generally survives and thrives on the strength of John Cusack's passionate performance as a skeptic of the supernatural who learns that spooks may be real, plus a spirited supporting role by Samuel L. Jackson and some effective chills by director Mikael Hafstrom and his effects crew.

Adapted from a King short story, the movie piles on plenty of images and noises done to death in the horror genre, bleeding walls and moaning spirits among them. But Hafstrom (the foreign-language Academy Award nominee "Evil") manages fresh and creepy twists, expanding the story far beyond the confines of a single room to, as "Twilight Zone" ringmaster Rod Serling might have put it, the paranormal playground of the imagination.

Much of the story plays out seemingly within the head of Mike Enslin (Cusack), a writer with so much emotional baggage and cynicism that he's an obvious mark for the forces of evil to sink their fangs into.

Mike's been in a state of denial for ages over murky memories of his dad, over terrible adversity involving his wife (Mary McCormack) and their daughter (Jasmine Jessica Anthony), over his profession as a haunted hack, writing books about hotel ghosts that he does not for a moment believe in.

"Nothing would make me happier than to experience a paranormal event, to catch a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel," Mike says.

But Mike's a confirmed disbeliever, a man who advises that Disney's the Haunted Mansion is the best place to see ghosts and that the real value of supernatural stories is to boost business for forgotten little hotels bypassed by the interstates.

Then Mike gets a postcard for the Dolphin Hotel in the heart of Manhattan bearing the message, "Don't enter 1408."

He figures it's a gimmick, an attempt by a struggling hotel to grab some publicity. Turns out the Dolphin's manager (Jackson, who is pure elegance and efficaciousness in a surprisingly small role) will do anything to keep Mike from staying in the room, from pleading to shock tactics to a bribe of really expensive booze.

"I don't want you to check in to 1408 because I don't want to clean up the mess," the manager tells Mike.

Over the decades, Mike learns, 56 people have died in room 1408 by suicide, heart attack and stroke, even a drowning by chicken soup. One man cut his own throat in the room, then tried to stitch it back together.

Still, Mike insists on checking in. Once he gets to room 1408, Cusack spends much of the movie on his own, and it's a grand, fun soliloquy act as he provides running commentary into his little tape recorder and responds with growing terror at the manifestations that beset him.

A clock radio keeps clicking on, playing tinnier and tinnier versions of the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," a wicked choice that becomes cleverer as the terrifying night drags on with no end in sight.

Grisly apparitions of previous 1408 lodgers appear, and Mike encounters greater horrors as his own past returns to haunt him.

Is it real? Is it all in his head? The movie's not-altogether-satisfying ending spells it out pretty clearly and seems an unnecessary Hollywood concession, letting the audience off with an easy answer.

After Hafstrom and the three screenwriters have kept people guessing through most of the movie, a more cryptic and open-ended finale would have been fitting.

"1408," released by MGM and Dimension Films, is rated PG-13 for thematic material including disturbing sequences of violence and terror, frightening images and language. Running time: 94 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
 
Y'all, go see this movie. Just got back from it and it's really awesome.
 
Yeah, the reviews for a horror movie being this good is actuall scary, pun intended. The last one to get reviews like this was probably the original Shining itself. I want to go see it just to get crowd reactions. I'm still laughing from when I saw the trailer at a theatre and the end part where he sees his daughter and she's all, "Daddy, don't you LOVE ME ANYMORE?!" and her voice goes all demonic, some dude in the theatre yelled, "hell naw I don't love you with your creepy ass!" People were cracking up, but this might be the sleeper.
 
I'm pleasantly surprised by the reviews so far. Nice to see that Hollywood can still evoke that kind of feeling, especially in a summer flooded with mediocre, predictable sequels. Even more fun that a Swedish director seems to have made one of the best Stephen King-adaptations in a long time, and perhaps one of the best ever based on his horror stories. Just a shame the movie won't be released in Sweden anytime soon :(
 
I just read Roeper's review.....im definately checking this one out!
 
Wanted to see this but looks like it won´t be shown here :(
 
It was a definite different movie than the typical horror flick. No one really is slashed or killed sans the ones that did it to themselves. The room itself is basically preys on your own personal demons and uses them against you. Which is much scarier than any physical slasher.
 
I saw it on Friday night. I was impressed by the reviews and I'm a big Stephen King fan (although I hadn't read the original story). I also felt it was my civic duty to support a scary movie that didn't have the words "Saw" or "Hostel" in the title. :up:

It was very good. The plot felt a little thin at times, but it was genuinely creepy, particularly the last scene, which creeped me out the more I thought about it. Great performance by John Cusack too.
 
I saw 1408 on Saturday night and I enjoyed it a lot!
 
Looks intersting, I guess it will be something more than horror or even thriller film.
 
I was right it was horrible. Damn you King for making another crappy story into a movie.
 
I thought this movie was great. I'd really like a bottle of that $800 hooch. I loved publishers office and the hotels decor. Cusak has once again proven how amazing he is. Bravo! :up:
 
this movie scared the crap out of me! anyone else seen it?
 
If only there were a forum dedicated to movies...oh wait there is...
 
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