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This is the most eerie, unsettling portion of the movie and will forever change your opinion of a sentimental Carpenters' wedding classic. The second act takes place with Mike alone in the room. We meet Mike on the outside, get to know him a little, then follow his single-minded determination to remove all obstacles and get his story. The first, which lasts about 30 minutes, is the setup. This is Håfström's second English language motion picture, and it's a considerable step up from his previous effort, the unsatisfactory Clive Owen/Jennifer Aniston thriller, Derailed.ġ408 is divided into three clearly delineated acts. From the moment Mike enters the room, there's a growing sense of dread, but this is punctuated by instances of stark, sudden terror. Director Mikael Håfström is as adept at setting up "boo!" moments as he is at building and sustaining suspense. Cusack uses his sunny, good natured disposition to get the audience to like him and, once that's accomplished, the film has us. Most of the movie focuses on Cusack, alone in his room, trapped in an escalating environment of paranoia. His "co-stars," Jackson and Mary McCormack (as Mike's estranged wife, Lily), have minimal screen time. Then strange things begin happening, and by the time he decides that checking out early might be the wisest decision, that option no longer exists.įor the most part, this is John Cusack's movie to carry, and he has no problem taking it where it needs to go. "No one," he advises, "has lasted more than an hour." At first, Mike is nonplused by the ordinariness of the accommodations. Jackson) calls it "fucking evil" and advises in the strongest terms that Mike not stay there. In its nearly 100 years of existence, 56 people have died in that room. For him, room 1408 at New York's Dolphin Hotel is too good a challenge to pass up. He makes his living by visiting supposed haunted houses and writing about the absence of ghosts.
#HORROR MOVIE ROOM 1408 AIRDUCT PROFESSIONAL#
Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a professional skeptic. Instead of the viewer being a step ahead of the filmmakers, it's the other way around. The film doesn't try to do too much and what appears to be a dead give-away of things to come turns out to be nothing more than a delicious piece of misdirection. It is by turns bold, scary, and downright creepy. While 1408 isn't on the same plane as The Shawshank Redemption or Misery, it's easily among the best King-inspired motion pictures to-date.
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The rule of thumb is that King's non-horror efforts have gotten much better treatment than his bread-and-butter fare. To say that movie adaptations of Stephen King stories have a checkered history is to understate the matter. However, 1408 deftly sidesteps that trap, delivering a conclusion that somehow manages not to disappoint while at the same time leaving things open-ended enough that viewer interpretation comes into play. Too often, we see a movie with a great setup like this ruined by a subpar ending. Yet, despite all of these recycled plot elements bobbing around, there's nothing stale about 1408, which is easily the best horror film of 2007. And here's a movie about a room-for-rent where people go in but don't come out (see also Vacancy). Here's a supernatural debunker faced with something that refuses to be debunked (see also The Reaping). Here's John Cusack, once again having lodging problems (see also Identity). If elements of 1408 seem a little familiar, it shouldn't be a surprise.