1408 (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 55

O Masterpiece (95-100)
O Excellent (75-94)
O Good video rental (60-74)
X Merely OK (50-59)
O Pure mediocrity (30-49)
O Medusa: don't watch (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / June 30, 2007

One fateful night after a football game, my friend, Bill Barnes, and I were stuck in traffic, listening to Billy Joel’s “Until the Night.” The revelry of the moment was interrupted by some dumb kid who inexplicably jabbed me in the eye with the knuckle of his thumb. His attack was completely unprovoked, I assure you. And I could not retaliate as he had several cohorts accompanying him.

Well, I vowed that I would never let that happen again. But darn it all, watching the very last 15 seconds of “1408” was a jab of the thumb knuckle into my eye. Again, I could not retaliate. I hate it when that happens.

To be fair, I can’t think of a haunted house movie that is truly good, much less a haunted hotel room movie. But that’s what “1408” is about: a haunted hotel room.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is an author who writes books about his overnight stays in haunted mansions and hotels. He is a cynic who doesn’t believe in much, not even God. When Enslin lodges at these supposedly haunted places, he takes his hand-held tape recorder and dictates notes for his next book.

The writer realizes that most of these places have cooked up their tall tales and ghost stories to attract visitors and fill vacancies. Enslin has no problem with the fabrications because they’re just making their living, and that enables him to make his.

But Enslin hears about an infamous room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. Intrigued, he tries to get a room but is met with significant resistance. The hotel’s manager, Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), tries to prevent Enslin from staying in the room, with overwrought, ominous warnings of evil, doom and death. Many people died in said room, most of them suicides. Despite the excessive warnings, Enslin stays in room 1408, and that’s all I will tell you.

Based on a Stephen King short story (but having three screenwriters, none of whom were King), “1408” has a distinct challenge of trying to scare us within the walls of a single hotel room. That’s quite a small space compared to a spooky, old mansion. The movie’s conventions used to get around this challenge did not satisfy me, not one bit.

But overall, “1408” is horrible, but it isn’t horrifying, either. It has the usual horror movie conventions of cheap, jumpy scares and our protagonist pursuing noises that we know he should leave well enough alone. This movie is merely OK.

Since I cannot tell you the end of “1408,” I might as well tell you the end of my story that I began with:

Years later, one sunny day I was on a street corner when I saw that same, aforementioned assailant in a car, stopped at a red light. He was sitting in the passenger seat, and I was just outside his window — an exactly parallel situation to that night a few years before, except he was in the hot seat this time (and he wasn’t listening to Billy Joel). Go figure.

The vulnerable delinquent did not recognize me, of course, because his earlier attack was a random act of violence. But I recognized him with certainty. I did not, however, jab my thumb knuckle into his eye (though I honestly considered it), because I realized that he probably had moved onto bigger and better things, like random, drive-by shootings.

But I can tell you this, dear Reader: If I ever end up staying in a room 1408 somewhere, I will most definitely whiz on the carpet. After all, a man can only turn his cheek (or eye, as it were) so many times.

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom
John Cusack / Samuel L. Jackson / Mary McCormack
94 min. Horror / Thriller
MPAA: PG-13 (for thematic material including disturbing sequences of violence and terror, frightening images and language)

Copyright 2007.
JP0144 : 616