Morgan Avery

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.

Viggo Mortensen putting in a pretty convincing performance as a Russian gangster in London.

Dude goes balls out, and I meant that entirely literally – if you’ve ever wanted to see Viggo’s skinny bare ass, or his dick & balls, this is the movie for you. (I hadn’t ever wanted to, but in context it wasn’t exploitative – it’s not a hot scene.)

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie that was so graphically, realistically, disturbingly violent. Where other movies would cut away to a face shot, we instead see the bolt cutters grinding through flesh and bone, and cutting off fingers, or razor blades being forcefully sawed back and forth, cutting through a throat.

Punches are not pulled.

Even if it isn’t all good, it’s still an exceptional piece of film making.

Actors wanting to learn how to project a palpable air of menacing power, violence held in check but ready to go at a moments notice, without screaming and shouting and putting on scowling and gravelly voices, would do well to pay close attention to Mortensen’s work in this role.

There was at least one scene which seemed to have the entire theatre (which was full of Russians, for obvious reason) shocked to the point of holding our collective breaths. Followed by a long release, with the odd nervous laugh from various around the room. Truly intense.

It’s quite something, if you have a strong stomach, you should see it.

I like: hot women, science fiction, zombies. Roll them all up together and what do you get? That’s right: Resident Evil.

This is the third in the Resident Evil series (so far?). Now, what’s the normal rule of sequels? Who cares! This is by far the best of the bunch.

Everything is fucked. Everyone is dead. Well, practically. There are a few Umbrella complexes operating around the world, there are a few stragglers out in the wild, running to live. It’s been years since everything went to shit… And as it turns out, the zombies don’t need to eat to live (they just like human flesh a lot, go figure) so they’re going to be around for decades. It turns out that the virus that causes the zombieism also affects other animals, and even plants… So the entire world is turning to desert.

So, like I said, everything is fucked.

But Alice is still alive, and she has guns.

It’s brutal, visceral, violent. You know how in some movies you get scared? You jump, and maybe feel a little embarassed, so perhaps you try to take a different posture in your seat to hide the inevitable next jump. Maybe you get so scared of the music building up to a climax that you even go as far as looking off to one side of the screen, as if peripheral vision will save you from being eaten.

This is totally one of those movies.

And – with the given caveat that it is a horror/zombie/scifi movie – it’s really very good.

Great performances, with returning roles for characters from the previous movies, and the introduction of that crazy-hot and plain crazy MPD chick from Heroes, as well as a small group of others. (Including some who get their just desserts with cherries on top.)

(Karl, I’m sure you already are, but you have to avoid this one like the plague.)

Everyone else will dig it.

Yeah, I know. What was I even thinking?

It was the biggest seller at the box office for the last 6 weeks running, and I wanted to see what was going on. Now, I’m not going to say that everyone else in the theatre was an idiot, but let’s say they were easily amused and just leave it at that.

Pro: Some of the music was alright; the stuff in the taxi (and some of the taxi driver’s scenes in general); the outtakes in the credits were funny. The incredibly hot Asian girl sitting next to me. Man, she’d make just sitting in a silent theatre fun.
Con: Everything else. It’s certainly no City Hunter or Drunken Master.