1408 - Review

Director: Mikael Håfström
Writers: Matt Greenberg/Scott Alexander
Starring: John Cusack/Samuel L. Jackson
Runtime: 94 minutes

1408 is a gutsy little suspense movie, and it works. I wouldn’t call it the best in its genre, though in the first twenty minutes, I wondered if it might come close. That’s the trouble with stories: can they pay off?

This film, based on a Stephen King short story, makes a good effort, and manages to avoid a lot of the clichés that destroy others of its kind.

The film stars John Cusack as a haunted house writer. He’s an iconoclast. He tours the country and stays the night in creepy hotels, trying to find evidence (or lack of it) of ghosts. At the beginning of the film, we learn that he has never stayed in a bonafide haunted house, and that the task bores him. He doesn’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, so staying the night in a creepy place doesn’t bother him in the least. Once he has compiled a bunch of articles on various places, he publishes them, and makes a buck.

Then comes The Dolphin, a hotel in New York City. He receives a postcard that tells him not to stay in room 1408. Curious, he goes to NY and tries to check in.

Tries, because the hotel manager (played by Samuel L. Jackson), attempts to dissuade him with stories of the horrors that await in the room. Over the years, more than 50 people have died in the room, either by suicide or “natural” death. One man poked his own eyes out. Several have jumped to their deaths. Another slit his own throat. Jackson has the photos and documentation to prove it. He declares that Cusack won’t last one hour in the room. Cusack, ever the sceptic, checks in anyway.

And that’s the setup. Jackson more or less disappears from the film after that, having done a turn as ‘office cameo.’ Office cameos are amusing. You know the actor had some time on his hands and that the producers wanted another name on the marquee. So for a day’s work, Jackson picked up a bunch of money to play an office scene with John Cusack.

I’d knock it, except that it is a very good scene. Jackson plays it very well, and doesn’t act as if he’s just walked onto the set for a quick money grab. It’s also a hard scene for an actor: you know Cusack is going to check into the room no matter what Jackson says, otherwise there would be no movie. It’s an exposition scene, put there for backstory. Scenes like that can be good, or they can be transparent and boring, like painting by numbers. Cusack and Jackson make it good.

After Cusack checks into the room, all kinds of things happen, not many of which I will go into here. It would ruin the film to talk about specifics.

The reason I called the film gutsy is that it is a hard story to film. Movies have a tough time keeping things interesting when shot in one location. The most famous movie for that was 12 Angry Men. Starring Henry Fonda and J. Lee Cobb, the film is about a group of jurors who spend the entire movie arguing the guilt or innocence of a man on trial. I’ve heard film directors say that filming a restaurant scene is tough, because nothing is more boring than a group of people sitting around a table. That’s just one scene. In 12 Angry Men, the entire movie is about people sitting around a table.

That’s hard to keep interesting, but it worked, because the director, Sidney Lumet, used areas of the room as different locations. He split the characters up by the watercooler, in the coat room, in the corner, whatever, and used these spaces as locations. The fact that he had a stellar cast didn’t hurt, either.

In 1408, the same problem exists, but it’s even tougher: Cusack has no one to talk to. He’s alone in the room, except for the various ghosts that come along, and the psychological stuff that takes place in his own mind. The director, Mikael Håfström, gets around this by using the bedroom, the bathroom, the lounge, and the windowledge as different locations for different “scenes.” He also has John Cusack, a fine actor who has been accused of playing himself, but if “himself” means good, so what?

Cusack also carries a tape recorder with him, giving him a chance to speak. This is an old device, but a necessary one. In Cast Away, Wilson the volleyball wasn’t there to give Tom Hanks a friend. It was there so Hanks could speak without sounding like a lunatic. It’s an odd truth: why do you appear more crazy for talking to yourself than for talking to a volleyball? In any event, whenever a film has a solo cast, look for the character to start talking to something – anything – in a fairly short time.

1408 sloshes around a bit in the middle, which is forgivable. A feature-length film tops out at over 90 minutes, and it’s tough to keep a lonely Cusack occupied for that long. I did take issue with a couple of the spooky characters. The film seemed more interested in scaring the hell out of John Cusack than in telling the story behind the room.

1408 is an enjoyable chiller. Cusack is very good considering he had no actors to act against, and the ending of the film is satisfying. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but it doesn’t cheat you, either.

Side note: The previews showed that Rob Zombie has directed a remake of Halloween, which will be released next month. Hollywood feeds off itself yet again. Its lack of fresh ideas is getting more depressing by the day.