1408

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a writer who debunks haunted places. He has a few books out about the scariest hotels, motels and other stuff like that. After his latest debunking he goes home to Cali and does some surfing, only to almost drown. Once recovered he goes to check his mail and discovers a postcard telling him not to go into room 1408.  The hotel in question is the posh Dolphin Hotel in New York.  He thinks it's cute because it is technically on the thirteenth floor and it you add the numbers you get thirteen. He does some research to find out that there have been a number of deaths, mostly suicides in the room in question.  So he goes up.

Once he arrives the hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) does every thing in his power to convince Mike not to spend the night in the room. He bribes him with alcohol,  he tells Mike that there have been a lot more deaths in 1408 that he thinks. Mike only found the unnatural deaths but there have been a number of heart attacks and even a drowning. Mike is still adamant.  Olin tells him that the room is only entered once a month to turn it down, something he supervises himself and the door is never closed, he tells him that  once the bathroom door closed and locked in one of the maids for ten minutes but that was enough time for her to gouge her own eyes out. Mike is not convinced. So Olin relents warning him that no one lasts an hour in the room.

The first little while of his stay is tension filled as things move when Mike isn't looking and even the electrician won't enter the room to fix the thermostat. After a bit more of Mike drinking his very expensive alcohol and taking notes on his recorder the radio turns on, and then starts to count down from 60 minutes. He then starts seeing ghosts and apparitions. At first he thinks that the alcohol has been spiked, but then decided he doesn't care, especially after seeing his dead daughter Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony), and he wants out. Only the room won't let him out. The door won't open, so he climbs out the window, only to discover there are no other windows anywhere and, once he is back in the room, there aren't even windows in 1408. He climbs out into the ducts next and finds a corps that obviously has been there for awhile and it starts to chase him.

Unable to call for help, he eventually  contacts his wife Lily (Mary McCormack) who is furious at him for being back in New York and not telling her. Apparently after his daughter died, he went out for cigarettes and never came back. Mike finally convinces her to send the police, but as they get there, they discover there is no one in room 1408. Then the room calls Lily and tells her to come over, and she listens.

The room then fills with water and as soon as Mike drowns he wakes up back on the beach after the surfing accident. Lily is there and they start to talk, but it is quite obvious that it isn't real and the room in playing a trick on him. I soon turn out to be right and Mike ends back up in the ruined hotel room where the clock is still counting down.   Once it reaches zero the room resets itself and he gets a phone call asking if he wants to relive the hour, I don't think he gets much of a choice in the matter and , remembering that Lily is still on her way he douses the room in alcohol and burns it down.

I really did not enjoy this movie. I did not know when I watched it that it was based on a story by Stephen King, but it makes sense, because I don't find King's writing, or movies based on his writing, as scary as people say they are. I did not find this movie scary in the least, I didn't even find it a good thriller movie. It was predictable and dull. Cusack and Jackson are excellent actors and they were very convincing in the film, as were the supporting cast; they were the only good thing in the movie. That, plus the fact that there was little to no gore in the film. I am so sick and tired of gore fest movies being labeled as 'horror', it was just a shame that there was nothing actually scary.

I am a little annoyed that there was no explanation about why the room was evil or whatever. Was it a gateway to a hell dimension? Was there are alien that took up residence in the room that fed off of fear and death? Was it built with cursed drywall? What? What was it? And I don't buy the explanation that places are 'just evil', because if that were true then after years of debunking ghosts and stuff, shouldn't Mike have come across another place that was 'just an evil place'. He didn't. So what, did all the evil in the world just flow into room 1408?

I was expecting more form this film, and was very disappointed.

Grade: 5.5/10