|
|
|
1408
(2007)
 
If you're anything like me, you love Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It's eerie. It's suspenseful. It slowly worms its way under your skin. You squirm as you watch Jack Nicholson's problem drinker Jack Torrance’s rapid decent into madness under the influence of an evil presence in the huge, old hotel. Some people, notably Stephen King, have issues with how his book was adapted for the screen, but few can argue that the aesthetics, acting and technical achievements of the film were anything but perfect. But whatever qualms you may have had, you are unlikely to have ever wondered, 'hey, what would this movie be like if it all took place in one room?'
The answer is the lackluster 1408. The movie opens strongly enough and Swedish director Mikael Håfström does a good job of building early suspense, but does so mainly by focusing on the minutia of the protagonist's existence while creepy music plays. We follow author Mike Enslin (John Cusack) to an inn, then to a book signing, then the post office, then a dinner... In this respect you could say that a horror/suspense film is repetition and sound design, and it works. Håfström selects excellent shots, directs the camera fluidly and gets very good performance from his actors—veterans, like Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, and new-comers alike.
The movie kicks off after Enslin checks his PO box and finds a postcard mixed in with fliers for haunted bed and breakfasts. Enslin is a professional skeptic. He doesn’t believe in ghost but writes books on haunted places because it’s easy and profitable. He believes all reported hauntings are just ploys to lure tourists into visiting out of the way, sad little inns. Unlike the fliers, however, the postcard is trying to scare him away. It bares an enigmatic warning of room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York City.
Enslin pursues the lead. And it takes some doing, as the hotel manager, played by Samuel L. Jackson, tries everything to keep Enslin out of the haunted room. Finally Enslin has to use his editor, played by Tony Shaloub, to get him a reservation through threat of litigation. And Enslin arrives at the Dolphin where he meets the manager face to face.
Someday, twenty or thirty years from now, we’ll be watching a compilation of scenes from Jackson’s career immediately before he’s presented with a lifetime achievement award and in that compilation there’s even money that his first scene in 1408 will be included. (I’d bet against these odds, though, as the movie’s not a classic but it is great scene.) Jackson handles what is essentially pure exposition masterfully and outlines for the audience the history of room 1408—its suicides, self mutilations and suspicious "deaths by natural causes," the strange and horrific things that staff who found themselves alone in the room screamed out, and the overly elaborate safety precautions exercised ever since. It’s genuinely creepy. And good.
The movie continues to build suspense once Enslin finally gets up to his room and eerie little things begin to happen. The toilet paper refolds itself, someone puts mints on the pillow, the clock radio goes off, the window slams down unexpectedly on his hand...and then apparitions appear! Across the street Enslin shouts to a man who turns out to be a mirror image of himself and someone’s behind him! Whooo! Unfortunately the film never really tops this scare.
Enslin is soon finds himself trapped in the room, and this concept quickly becomes boring. In a constant effort to top the preceding scares the room manifests progressively bigger and bigger phantasmagoria, but as wave after wave of shifting walls, moving pictures, changing temperatures, disappearing windows batter Enslin about, the less engaged the audience becomes. This is partly because we never gain a better understanding of what’s going on than we have immediately after the manager’s info dump. Yes the room is evil. Ok. Fine. Why is it evil? Why did the first suicide happen? Who’s that person with the hatchet? Why’s that one lady look like an old television show? Who sent the post card? Was it the room? And if so, how’d it buy the stamp?
In The Shining we understood what was at the root of the evil manifestations and also no one was confined to one room for the vast majority of the movie. This just isn’t the case with 1408. Of course, on the other hand, maybe I should be glad the directors and screen writers didn’t attempt any additional exposition after the heavy handed way we learn about Enslin’s past. The way we learned about the death of Enslin’s daughter (to cancer) and subsequent end of Enslin’s marriage didn’t really leave me feeling more sympathetic to Enslin, instead I felt resentful that something as tragic as a child’s death would just be slapped in, foreshadowed by an awkward plant (in Tony Shaloub’s one and only scene) and exploited in an attempt to make the audience feel anything. I can’t imagine the grief a parent feels when their child dies but that’s partly because I’ve just watched a movie that depicted it in such a half-assed manner.
1408 is reasonable strong for the first 40 minutes or so, but after building up a head of suspense it just flounders its way through bigger effects, fake dream-sequence endings, and the exploitation of loss. ‘1408’ was one short story that should have never been adapted into a feature and in the end feels like a diluted version of the much, much better haunted hotel movie based on Stephen King’s writing to which it invites comparison. In fact if you have any doubts that 1408 is just a watered-down version of The Shining consider this; in The Shining there is an iconic flood of blood from the elevator shaft. In 1408 there is a prosaic flood of water. Huh, maybe the room’s so evil cause it’s got some burst pipes.
|
|
|
|
All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
|
|
 |
Director:
Mikael
Håfström
Writer: Matt
Greenberg, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski, Stephen King
Starring: John
Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack
Distributor: MGM
Runtime: 94
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: June
22, 2007
|
|
 |
|
