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Following the Stephen King prison movie double bill of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile comes the second part of an inadvertent Stephen King hotel movie double bill - 27 years after The Shining, here's John Cusack in 1408. Both films do have similarities beyond the creepy hotel conceit; their central protagonists both go a little mad over the course of the film (although John Cusack could never possess the same air of menace as a deranged Jack Nicholson) and both films focus on cerebral rather than graphic horror.
Cusack's characters always have an air of cool nonchalance, and his author/ghost story debunker Mike Enslin does not depart too much from that. However, the fact that much of 1408 rests on his shoulders - for much of the time, he's the only character - is certainly not a curse. Even if it's not always the case on the page, Cusack makes Enslin a layered and rounded character and one whose plight you come to care for by the end. The title, 1408, refers to the number of a room in New York's (fictional) Dolphin Hotel, which hotel manager Samuel L. Jackson entertainingly warns him against entering. But Enslin's years of investigating haunted locales and failure to encounter anything vaguely supernatural have made him something of a sceptic, so of course he's not put off by the grisly past of the room (including dozens of horrific suicides and 'natural' deaths). Even with no knowledge of the film beforehand it's blindingly obvious that he's not going to get a good night's sleep, but that inevitability aids the suspense in the engrossing build-up.
At first, everything is enjoyably creepy: the room's radio turning itself on suddenly, a clock beginning to count down from 60 minutes, an open window slamming down on Cusack's fingers. Indeed, director Mikael Håfström orchestrates the scares very competently. In the later stages, however, he starts to lose the plot just like his central character. The quest for sudden shocks takes over from the slow, gnawing suspense and it starts to become a bit tiresome. Occasionally visual effects are used when they are not necessary; for example, at times Enslin sees apparitions in his room which look like scratchy projections, but they would be more scary if they were just real, tangible people. Thankfully, although the third act suffers from a case of over-convolution, clear explanations are avoided. The final scene in the film ends on a pleasing note of ambiguity, making the audience question what they think has come before. This ending and the effective first hour or so easily elevate 1408 above average.
The summary
A well-made spook 'em up that hinges on a reliably strong central performance from John Cusack. The limited premise is stretched somewhat to fill out a feature film (the source material is a short story) but it generally delivers the goods.
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