1408 Review
Cast – John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson
Director - Mikael Hatshrom
Rating - 3/5
Mike Enslin (Cusack) is a talented sell-out writer who once wrote a novel which wasn’t a success but touched the few people who read it.
He now writes paranormal Travel books, often lying about paranormal activity.
He lets slip in an interview, at a book signing, that he doesn’t believe in what he writes about.But he is intrigued by room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York which has seen dozens of deaths.
No member of the public is allowed to stay in that room.Despite warnings from the hotel manager (Jackson) Enslin demands to stay in the room – no one lasts longer than one hour in room 1408.
The first hour of 1408, which is an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, is genuinely full of suspense and shocks in the very claustrophobic atmosphere of the four room walls which create the tension and fear.
Those in the audience who have seen many Stephen King adaptations will draw on the similarities with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.Cusack who is perhaps better known for his more comedic roles in High Fidelity and America’s Sweethearts holds down the horror film well.
1408 doesn’t resort to guts and gore it’s all about how Enslin reacts from minute to minute as he beliefs begin to be tested.
Cusack takes the audience on the journey with him allowing them to feel his fear and his heartbreak when he is faced with what appears to be a vision of his dead daughter.
Hatshrom was the director of last year’s Derailed which doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence and when the film starts looking at apparitions and bleeding walls the tension disappears and chaos takes control as the film succumbs to CGI.
But it does attempt to regain some type of structure control with an end that does leave a lot of questions unanswered which gives the audience some food for thought as they are able to interpret for themselves what happened to Enslin in room 1408.
It’s almost a Scrooge, as in A Christmas Carol, like story: Enslin struggles to come to terms with the loss of his only child. The death of his daughter causes a rift between Mike and his wife and he goes in pursuit of the afterlife, living a life of little pleasure.
His experience in room 1408 is like being visited by ghosts of the past present and future and in the end he is able to come to terms with the loss of his daughter.
1408 starts out as a chilling thriller as Enslin battles with the four walls around him. Unfortunately it does lose its way in the middle as it tries to bring in outside influences that just don’t fit with the early tone of the film.
However it does redeem itself in the last twenty minutes providing a satisfactory ending. Cusack delivers a great performance and does his best with the collapse in the middle of the movie. The talents of Samuel L. Jackson are vastly under used although the scenes in which he does appear he creates tension and unease in 1408 before the door to the room is even unlocked . Whlie 1408 doesn’t bring anything new to the horror movie genre it’s definitely worth a watch.
Helen Earnshaw
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Tagged in John Cusack