1408 (Road to Halloween)

As I mentioned in my R-Point review, I love psychological horror which made 1408 a natural choice on the road to Halloween.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a writer who specialises in writing lists of the most haunted locations (Hotels, graveyards, houses, etc.) throughout America. While checking his PO Box, he finds a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in New York it simply reads “Don't enter 1408” this however is a tactic Mike has seen before but when the hotel refuse to allow him to book the room his interest in piqued.

In person, the hotel manager (Gerald Olin) informs him he's received a free upgrade to a better room, when Enslin demands to stay in 1408, he tries to bribe him which also doesn't work. Olin then tells Enslin the bloody history of the room and the fact that no-one has lasted more than one hour in the room and finally begs him not to stay in the room but to no avail.

John Cusack spends most of the movie confined to the room and a large proportion of the movie takes place in realtime. His performance as a tortured and haunted man is believable and he makes it easy to become invested in his character's tale. As I mentioned above, the room is where 90% of the movie takes place and a lot of action takes place in it. Almost all of the things that happen in the room were actually done which, for one particular sequence required 3 different room to be created for each of the escalating sections.

The movie contains several scenes which have traditional quick fright moments but for the mainstay the horror comes from the suspenseful and occasionally heart-wrenching moments the movie is filled with.

To review this I watched the Director's Cut which differs greatly from the Cinematic version and personally prefer the cinematic version as it leaves the story in a much better place.

Rating 4 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Secret Window
The Shining
The Mist

What does IMDB say?

Review by Kevin Brown