This light horror, based on a short story by Stephen King, follows a man with a very unusual job. Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a washed-up novelist who now makes his living investigating claims of haunted hotels, graveyards and the like. Although he wants to believe, he has never seen anything remotely supernatural on his many fact-finding missions for his hokey books. When he hears about the ‘evil’ room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel, he decides to spend the night there, despite the protestations of the manager. The scene is set for a nightmarish evening in a very scary hotel room.
1408 is refreshingly short of blood and guts for a modern horror, but delivers chills rather than out-and-out terror. The neat set-up of the hotel room allows the director Mikael Håfström to build up the creepiness and weirdness, but it also makes this film a definite one man show (the lovely Tony Shalhoub and Samuel L. Jackson are relegated to one scene each). Luckily Cusack really commits to the role and gives a great performance. There are some problems, though. The ending feels very abrupt, and it all goes a bit Silent Hill on our collective asses with the appearance of a few unexplained dusty monsters that just don’t fit in. This is still an enjoyable film if you want a few scares, but perhaps aficionados of the horror genre will be a little disappointed.
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