The thing about movies based on Stephen King stories is that they’re all over the place, one year we have The Green Mile, The Shining, or Shawshank Redemption, and another we have Maximum Overdrive or Sleepwalkers. So you just don’t know what you’re going to get, right?
Anyway, this one isn’t one of the stinkers.
It certainly helps that John Cusack takes the role, I really do like him. Which is a good thing, if you took 10 random seconds out of the movie, chances are better than even that every one of them would feature him, by himself, in a hotel room.
It’s all about the hotel room, you see. Indeed, the hotel room is the titular 1408 (1 + 4 + 0 + 8 = 13), also there’s no level 13 in the building – the elevator goes from 12 – 14, so this is, in fact, on the 13th floor.
John Cusack is Mike Enslin – and here’s a shock for you, the male lead in a Stephen King story, dun dun dunnnnn: is a writer. Mostly writing about haunted hotel rooms and so on, which finally leads him to the Dolphin Hotel in New York, where they really, really don’t want to let him take room 1408. (Usually, you see, the proprietor is gagggging to get him into one of their “haunted rooms”, so this is an unusual start.)
When he finally gets into the room, the Japanese girls sitting behind me in the theatre go into fucking overdrive. I don’t blame them. Shit got scary in no time flat.
Die in a fire you creepy goddamn alarm clock!
Anyway, I thought it was good and scary. It made my skin prick and my hair stand on end. (Shut-up)
If you want a good scare, I reckon you should take your favourite girl (or guy) to this movie, then you can snuggle up close when it gets too scary. It’ll be a good time. Promise.
P.S. You are here.