1408 (2007)
Starring John Cusack, Samuel Jackson & Mary McCormack
Directed by Mikael Håfström
Written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

 

It starts with a dare. A postcard sent to a writer haunted more by his one demons of personal tragedy than any viable entity. But, as this movie will propose, aren’t those entities the worst of all? Are not the truly haunted houses the one we build from our guilt and suffering?

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a fraud. A writer who has written three best selling novels on haunted places, such as hotels, graveyards and castles yet he doesn’t believe for one second that there is an afterlife. He is a man who has endured the greatest of all tragedies with the loss of his young daughter to cancer. Somewhere inside him, Mike is desperate to know if there could possibly be something beyond this life and he is willing to take any chance to find out. When a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel arrives with the words, “Don’t enter room 1408” scrawled across it, he is immediately intrigued. Ignoring the warning, which acts more as incentive than anything, he attempts to make a reservation but is informed that he cannot stay in the room. Undaunted, he travels to New York City and through the machinations of his agent discovers a clause by which the hotel must let him stay in the room.

Hotel manager, Gerald Olin (Samuel Jackson) makes every effort to dissuade him, first by offering full disclosure, along with pictures, of what horrific deaths have resulted in stays in room 1408, then with a 800$ bottle of cognac. Both bribes Mike gladly accepts but he is still determined to stay in the room. Olin warns Mike that no one has ever lasted more than an hour in the room. None of which can convince Mike not to stay in the room. If anything, he is even more determined to discover what really exists there.

The games begin the moment Mike steps foot inside the room. The radio begins to play the eerily prophetic Carpenters song “We’ve Only Just Begun” no matter what station it’s turned too, even when he unplugs it. Then the numbers on the digital clock set themselves to 60 minutes and begin to ominously count down.

A strange ringing in his eyes sends him rushing to the window to check his hearing, which then slams shut on his hand leaving a bloody gash that he tries to wrap with a bandana. Unwillingly frightened Mike tries to leave the room but his key snaps off in the lock trapping him inside.

From there on, he will endure visions of his daughters’ tragic death, along with sights and sounds that all prey on his fears, but he continues to dismiss them as hallucinations. He tries desperately to escape the room, but all efforts end in failure. He is able to reach his estranged wife via his laptop video cam only to have an evil doppelganger of himself take over the conversation and urge his wife to come to room 1408.

All the while the temperature in the room keeps dropping radically until it reaches subzero shorting out his laptop. The room begins to tear itself apart until the walls crack open and torrents of water rush in to flood the room. Mike is pulled under and awakens on a beach where he has supposedly suffered a surfing accident. This strange reality continues with him at the hospital then heading home, stopping off at the post office to pick up his mail. There the illusion is shattered when workers apparently repairing the post office begin to tear it apart revealing the interior of room 1408, now fire gutted.

He is back where he started and Mike realizes this may be where it all ends. More horror awaits as he is forced to relive his daughters last moments even as the room crumbles and then reinvents itself around him. The clock timer reaches zero and then resets itself. The room taunts Mike with visions of suicide as his only way out of this hell, but he has one last plan and this time what can’t be escaped, will be destroyed.

There are two endings to the film but I leave it up to the viewer to decide which one to watch. One is dark and haunting, the other is somewhat more positive. Both leave you with a lasting image of a room and what terrors lurk within.

Other reviews have compared the mood and disturbing atmosphere of this film to The Shining. There is the shared element of a tortured writer facing off against the personal demons that lie in wait beyond the borders of the conscious land. There is also the fact that both films successfully create a stark and fearful reality within the supposedly innocuous walls of hotels. But where Stanley Kubrick used overblown tactics, director Mikael Håfström uses significantly and effectively more subtle ones. He does a far better job at staying true to King’s style and craft. This film is an excellent adaption of Kings story. It manages to bring the fright level to a high pitch without acting that chews up the scenery, aka Jack Nicolson, or leeching out the emotion. Mike Enslin’s pain over the loss of his daughter, and his ultimate faith in life, remains a vibrant thread in the fabric of the film.

John Cusack as the cynic turned into fervent believer is believable and well done. Samuel Jackson, although in a minor role, is his usual imitable self bringing a restrained fear and sardonic humor to the character of Gerald Olin. This is not a film that utilizes gore or violence to create its effects, but uses clever and sly methods of delivery. If you’re a King fan, this is a must see, if you’re not, check it out anyway to see how a really good horror film can still scare the crap out of you, even without dripping blood and flesh eating zombies.

In the end we are left this haunting statement,