You have to hand it to Jon Cusack whose singular intensity makes this a rollicking thriller. In less capable hands, 1408 would be a disaster. It’s essentially a one hander, with peripheral performances lasting mere moments and Cusack in nearly every frame.
Watching his character go through the stages of disbelief to victim with such focus is an amazing thing. It is hard to imagine how draining the experience must have been for him after weeks acting scared out of his wits.
The story begins as ghost hunter Mike Enlsin arrives at an allegedly haunted in, the latest in his ghost research trips. He writes guides to haunted hotels and he comes armed with an array of ghost detectors, infrared lights and his trusty tape recorder.
By the time we meet him, he’s jaded – he’s never had a supernatural experience and it’s becoming hard to even pretend he’s interested in the job, or people’s ‘ghosts’, ghosts sometimes fabricated to increase commercial traffic.
He doesn’t scare and he is openly disdainful of the inns and their owners. He admits as much at a scarcely attended book signing and closes the Q and A with an ironic directive to ‘Stay scared’ even though he probably never has been.
One day while vacationing and surfing in ghost free Miami, Enslin receives an anonymous tip about a certain Room 1408 in an old New York hotel called The Dolphin. Interesting since he’s waterlogged in Miami.
It’s said that no one ever stayed in the room for more than an hour, so they shut it up with maid service under security, carried out once a month and lasting just ten minutes.
Naturally, the hotel won’t let him take the room. It’s an evil room, warns manager Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), in which more than 200 people have died – mostly suicides, some from extreme natural causes. So no, 1408 is not available.
Which is all Enslin needs to get his curiosity juices flowing again. Nothing he loves more than someone saying no because he’s going to make them say yes. And he does. Off to Room 1408 strong in the way people are who refuse to back down.
So things start to happen. There are separate and slim father and daughter subplots thrown in, but we are really there to see hellish fireworks and they know it.
Cusack is superb but the problem is the film is too long – one person doing one thing for an hour and a half is too much. 1408 could be edited down to 75 or 80 minutes as a television special; even with the most skillful actor and clever special effects, it’s unexpectedly plodding.
It’s hard to do anything new with horror because every subject has been worked over in recent years. It’s time for the horror trend to go away, because originality is waning.
1408 is a Stephen King novel to be sure, but it’s a minor one.
What separates 1408 from the crowd is Cusack’s heartfelt portrayal of man who goes to hell. Which leads us to ask why is Jon Cusack in a horror film – they are for the most part, places people go when nothing better is on the horizon.
Cusack has plenty on the go, so perhaps he took this part because it’s a one hander, a rare chance to push the limits of his considerable skills further. He raises the horror genre through performance.
1408
In theatres June 22. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for thematic material including disturbing sequences of violence and terror, frightening images and language.
ChrisJun 25th, 2007 - 02:10:45
56 People died in the Room, and he went surfing in L.A....
Did you actually watch the film?
Report this comment