1408

Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Shalhoub, Drew Powell, Kim Thompson, Mary McCormack, Jasmine Jessica Anthony

Written by: Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski Based on the story by Stephen King

Directed by: Mikael Hafstrom

Distributor: MGM Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Take it from Sartre: the concept of a room from which there is no exit is deliciously disturbing. The concept of a hotel room from which there is no escape is all the more disturbing. Being indefinitely forced into a space designed to be friendly and cozy plays an uncanny parallel to the day-to-day lives of most Americans. In our modern world, all the dangerous edges have been taken off everything and even Hell has a customer service department. Picture if you will 1408, a fictitious room on the 13th floor of the Dolphin Hotel on the corner of 45th and Lexington in mid-town Manhattan. Few who have entered the room have lived to tell about it. The hotel management doesn’t let anyone into the room anymore, but one skeptic is about to force his way in and get more than he bargained for in the Twilight Zone . . .

All cliché aside, 1408 is actually a pretty good film. Admittedly, the story isn’t particularly clever, but the way it is delivered makes for some interesting moments of cinematic horror. It easily takes its place amidst the classics of the genre without quite being good enough to transcend it. John Cusack (The Ice Harvest, Runaway Jury) stars as Mike Enslin, a professional paranormal skeptic who has just released his latest book – a collection of stories about allegedly haunted hotel rooms he’s visited. When he receives a mysterious postcard from the Dolphin Hotel, he’s curious. When he finds out hotel management won’t let him stay in the room the postcard refers to, he’s curious enough to threaten legal action if they don’t let him into a perfectly vacant room. Thus begins Enslin’s journey into the horror of self-discovery. As Enslin finds out in his adventure, much of the horror in the room is brought in by the person foolish enough to spend the night there. If Sartre’s No Exit set out to explore the idea that “Hell Is Other People,” 1408 explores the idea that Hell is one’s self.

Cusack makes for a refreshing horror hero. Having appeared in only a couple of horror movies in a career, which now spans over 40 films, Cusack brings a freshness to the genre that goes a long way toward selling the film’s concept. Cusack renders Enslin’s increasing weariness over the course of the film in impressive detail. He still makes the same questionable decisions that any character in a horror movie would, but Cusack makes the character believable. Still, there ARE a few frustrating moments of questionable judgment. Long after the knob has fallen off the door to the room, Enslin uses a knife to unscrew a panel in the ceiling to escape through the ventilation system, so why doesn’t he just use it to pop open door? That type of thing . . . but Cusack’s desperate bleariness in the role makes such questionable decisions seem natural.

Samuel L. Jackson provides all the necessary lead-in to the bulk of the story as the manager of the Dolphin Hotel. He cuts a somewhat sinister figure as the guy who is trying to warn him of what he’s getting into. Jackson lends a great deal of class to most of the films he appears in and his brief appearance in 1408 is no exception. He and Cusack give the film more credibility than it probably deserves. Sartre’s No Exit was a lot more sinister by being a lot more subtle. VS