competent but flawed

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2008)

John Cusack plays an author whose specialty is debunking supposedly haunted locales. In this movie he tackles a hotel room, which he finds out really is, in the words of manager Sam Jackson, "an evil f***ing room". 1408 starts off on the right foot, using the skeptical Cusack as a surrogate for the viewer. And the writers and director do manage to create a few scary moments early on, but the movie is plagued by two main problems. First, the story is saddled with some heavy-handed "lessons". Second, and even more damaging, the movie is completely lacking in interior logic. The tricks the room deploys against Cusack are rather random, too often reliant on cheap shock value, and sometimes just plain laughable (It's too warm! It's too cold!! The sprinklers are going off!!! The mini-bar is empty! Oh, the horror!). And the way Cusack vanquishes the room is lame: he simply burns it down. Why would that even work on a supernatural room? Then we get the underwhelming final scene, when Cusack's ex-wife hears their dead daughter's voice on his tape recorder.
From what I've read, the director's cut at least has a better ending, with Cusack dying in the fire he sets. Jackson later sees an apparition that implies Cusack and his daughter are reunited.