Attempt at horror

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2008)

Mike Enslin ( Played by John Cusack) is a hack Los Angeles writer and one of his main themes is the debunking of paranormal phenomena. He definitely does not possess fear of or believe in the supernatural or ghosts. He receives a strange post card inviting him to room 1408 at the New Tork Hotel, The Dolphin. So this struggling writer ends up curious enough to travel to New York and book a room 1408 but the hotel manager Gerald Olin, played by Samuel Jackson, desperately tries to persuade Enslin that the room is indeed haunted and that there has been some 50 recorded and unrecorded deaths in it since the Hotel was opened. Olins efforts to deter Enslin only spur him on so he allows him to book the room. He is warned that no one last more than an hour in the room.
After Enslin settles in the room his view on the supernatural radically changes after he initially thinks he is hallucinating on drug spiked alcohol. Enslin goes through a harrowing experience which has spiritual and religious overtones.
He even comes in to contact with a loved one whom he lost tragically. Not a bad flick for young teenage couples in a boring summer evening. Most movies of these genre are totally implausible but I guess that is part of the appeal.