Review: 1408

A thin film produced from a thin story. John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a failing horror book writer who gets a postcard warning him not to stay in room 1408. Ever the debunker of myth and legend, Enslin leaps at the opportunity to stay in the hotel. Upon reaching the hotel, Enslin is pulled into a room by the hotel manager,Mr. Olin, played by Samuel El Jackson (playing himself, which he does in almost every film now). Olin makes every attempt to derail Enslin's plan for staying in the hotel room, citing all the deaths and mysterious occurances in the room's history. Of course, Enslin eventually talks his way into staying.

Upon entering the room, the camera takes advantage of the small space. We're given many point of view shots as Enslin surveys the room of doom. This is used somewhat as a device, as a few of the "jump out and get you" scares occur while in a point of view. The scares in this film are on the most part far and few in between. They don't shock you much, and the film seems more of a thriller in nature. This is another one of those films that was misrepresented in it's trailer (Bug suffered from the same fate) and I think this is what left it lacking. This film simply needed more scares to justify the absolute evilness of the room. If this room caused people to slit their own throats, jump out of windows, and other horrible things... something really, really awful had to happen. This film shows us none of it. There are some typical genre scares here, slashers, weird imagery, little girls (Enslin's daughter died prior to him going into the room, how convenient) but we don't get anything fresh.

4 / 10 with an extra point for Samuel El Jackson's utterance with a cigar towards the end of the film.