1408 (2007)

The movie 1408 came out at a pivotal time in my adolescence: my sister and I went to see it in our crappy two-screen local town cinema with our boyfriends, and it was one of the most terrifying cinematic experiences we had ever experienced, or have since. We were both avid Stephen King enthusiasts and were just blown away with this adaptation of his short story. It was not only a movie that made you jump, but gave you chills right to the core.


Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a paranormal investigator/writer/skeptic/world's sloppiest envelope-opener, who once had a career as a legitimate author. He makes his living visiting supposedly haunted hotels and houses and officially debunking all attached theories. One day he finds a mysterious postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in New York City, warning him not to enter room 1408. His manager (Tony Shalhoub) uses a lawyer to bend the hotel's resistance to Mike's demand for the room, and when he arrives, Mike faces further defensiveness from the hotel manager Mr Olin (Samuel L Jackson). Eventually, Mike gets into the room, and his mental and physical undoing commences.

Olin describes Mike as 'an intelligent man who doesn't believe in anyone or anything but himself',

and the writer's skepticism lasts a surprisingly short period, after which Olin's guarantee that 'nobody has ever lasted more than an hour in that room' will be fulfilled, as visualised by a ghostly digital bedside clock. For as long as a logical cynically-atheist man possibly can, Mike tries to apply the laws of physics to his ordeal, and his theory that Olin gifted him spiked whiskey seemingly holds up throughout. In the midst of his wildest nightmare scenarios, there are periodic shots portraying Mike in a perfectly untouched hotel room in hysterics.

Although the entire movie is your average decent-budget-with-several-big-names-attached in terms of style, it serves the space-bending narrative perfectly, and makes good use of perspective in the form of both newspaper articles and 1408 room paintings, all looking back at Mike as he examines them. As his ordeal (I apologise for my frequent use of this word; only I can think of no effective alternative) intensifies, there are some particularly wonderful works by the set designers and constructors, in a movie which, generally, I think was probably pretty cheap to make as the majority of the action takes place in a moderately-sized hotel suite that could be easily replicated on sound stages.

One thing I did not expect this evening was to end up crying at a horror movie I had seen a few times before. But I suppose every other time I had seen it, I was not the mother of an eight-year-old daughter like I am now. The central trauma that underpins Mike's ordeal in 1408 is the death of his young daughter Katie, and the child's implied resignation to her illness as a result of belief in God and Heaven. A sequence in which Mike is approached by a vision of his dead child - one he knows is not real - and holds her, crying hysterically and assuring her of his unending love. Cusack is an incredible actor, and both his sorrow and his terror are so tangible from the beginning of the movie to the very end.

1408 is mainly a one-man show by Cusack, and he is perfect. The role allows him to have fun with many emotions and attitudes in the same character, while Jackson's (sadly) minimal role allows him to oppose Cusack's determined disbelief... and deliver at least one joyously gratuitous 'fuckin'. It's a really good, tense and scary movie.