June 22, 2007

Review of the movie, 1408.

I went to see 1408, the new movie starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Stephen King, tonight at the Hollywood 20 on Main street in Sarasota.

Possible spoilers below.

The story;
Mike Enslin writes books on the paranormal. He visits so called haunted hotels and then writes his experiences down and rates them on a scale of 1-10 skulls. But only believes what he can see, but tries to keep each location on good standing so they can keep their tourists.

He plans on doing the same thing in the infamous room 1408, of the Dolphin Hotel for his latest project.
He gets the idea to go there when he checks his mail, and receives a postcard that says "Don't stay in room 1408."
That's it.

He calls the hotel to book a room, and they tell him it's not available.
Not Saturday, not next Tuesday, not next month, or next summer.
The manager of the hotel tries to discourage people from staying there and Enslin (Cusack) is no exception.
But Enslin's book manager finds an old law on the New York books, that if a hotel has any room technically available, they have to let a guest stay in it.

When Enslin arrives, the manager, Mr. Owen (Samuel L. Jackson) does everything he can to try and get Enslin to stay in another room. He tries the upgrade to a suite plan, he tries to bribe him with a bottle of really expensive liquor, he tries to tell him about all 56 people who died in that room in the history of the hotel.
Enslin thinks this is a great trick, keep the hype up on the room, it makes the hotel more popular, but Owen says that the hotel tries to keep the stories out of the papers, they don't want the publicity.
Why?
It's not a spirit or poltergeist, it's the room itself.
"It's a fucking evil room" says Owen.

Enslin finally gets the key and goes in, all is going great for awhile, he talks into his hand held recorder describing the room in detail.
Then, the clock radio turns on by itself, playing the Carpenters song, "We've only just begun".
And indeed, we have.

From that moment forward, the room does every thing it can to get Enslin to kill himself.
The room doesn't kill you, it gets you to do it in a variety of ways.
Every person who has died in that room, all ended themselves, or died of natural causes like heart attacks or a stroke, brought on by fear.
One guy even drowned in a bowl of chicken soup.
Enslin starts to snap after awhile, the same thing many of the rooms former guests did, but he keeps getting a grip on himself, and comes back to his senses.
The room is truly evil though, and it plays many heinous tricks on him, one was his young daughter who had died.
The room brings her back to him, he can feel her, hug her, smell her, talk to her.
Then the room takes her away.
It was a sad moment, the only sad moment in the entire movie.
The rest of it will have you jumping out of your seat, screaming, and clutching who ever is seated next to you.
The entire audience was freaking out.
This movie has some of the best "jump" moments I have seen in a long, long time.
Our hero finally finds a way to stay alive, beat the room's 1 hour countdown.
If you somehow manage to make it through the first hour, it makes you do it again.
It's torturous.
It plays on all of your thoughts and fears, it knows you and uses it against you.
I won't say any more, I don't want to ruin it for you.

Cusack, as always, does an awesome job. I think I have loved every character he has ever portrayed. Jackson's role is minimal, he really is just the hotel manager, a creepy one, but he played the role well.
I probably would have taken him up on his offer of the suite upgrade.

Definitely go see this, it's worth the cost of the ticket.