Movie Review: 1408

1408 (2007) 

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom

Written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski 

Starring John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Shalhoub

Release Date June 15th, 2007 

Published June 14th, 2007 

Adaptations of horror master Stephen King's many novels and short stories can't be called hit and miss because there are far more misses than hits. Hollywood has failed on numerous occasions to capture the nuances and intricacies of King's psychological approach to horror. Whether it's timidity, Hollywood producers unwilling to go the extremes of King's writing or if it were simply that King's work is unadaptable to the film medium, we really have yet to see one filmmaker find the right take on King's unbelievably popular work.

The latest attempt to bring King's work to the screen is arguably the most successful yet. 1408 is a short story about a disillusioned writer searching for ghosts in corporeal form and in his own psyche.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a hack who writes fake creepy stuff about tourist trap hotels that purport to have ghosts. Mike is nearly burnt out on searching for the supernatural and never finding it when he stumbles across the legend of room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. It's a room where numerous murders and suicides are alleged to have taken place.

Unlike most of the tourist trap fleapits that claim a paranormal connection,  Mike discovers that the management at the Dolphin Hotel, lead by Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) aren't interested in promoting their haunted history. Olin does all he can to try and discourage Steve from staying in 1408. Explaining that murders and suicides weren't the only occurrances of death in 1408, Olin goes as far as to give Steve the entire gory history of 1408 if he will just not stay there.

Unfortunately, Steve comes to believe this is merely part of the spiel to sell the creepiness of the room. He insists on getting the keys and despite Olin's ominous warnings, he's prepared to spend the night in 1408 come hell or high water. Little did he know hell and high water are literal features of this room.

Mikael Hafstrom, whose last film was the overwrought thriller Derailed, directs 1408 with an eye for dream like detail. Watch the way the room is filmed, how things are always slightly off. Doorways, hallways, paintings all seem to shift uncontrollably and yet ever so subtely that you only notice if you  begin to really look for it.

That said, there is fair debate as to whether what happens in 1408 is meant as a sort of fever dream of depressed writer on the edge of sanity or if this is in fact the evil of the room working its mojo. It's that compelling mix that keeps you guessing throughout this endlessly clever, scary, entertaining film.

John Cusack's complicated performance in 1408 is one of the most fascinating of his underappreciated career. Considering that much of the film takes place with Cusack alone in a hotel room, acting by himself, you must be impressed with his technique and endless charisma. Using the device of a tape recorder to allow Cusack's writer to talk to us aloud, director Mikael Hafstrom trains his camera tightly on Cusack's upper body and head giving us that tight claustrophobic feel.

We are trapped with Cusack in this room and Hafstrom uses his camera to shrink the room around us. It's a remarkable piece of direction that will chill the spine and push you to the edge of your seat. Hafstrom is the rare director who gets the spirit of King's very internalized form of horror. Many other King adaptations have picked up on the more twisted or gory aspects, 1408 is the first to tap the mind of King and follow his disturbing psychic instructions.

A taut psychological horror flick, 1408 far surpasses the product that passes for horror in this day and age. 1408 proves that you don't need idiot teenage characters in tight clothes (or no clothes at all), sadistic directors, or pseudo porn to make a horror film. This is a movie that thrives and scares with smarts and technique.

1408 is also the very rare example of a Stephen King adaptation that actually looks and feels like a King work. Terrifyingly cerebral, 1408 is Stephen King brought to the big screen for the first time in his finest form.