1408 lacks horror, suspense, creepiness... and by no means should be compared to The Shining!!!

Rating: 2/10 (10 July 2007)

There are way too many positive comments about this movie. Hundreds of users praise this movie as being true horror and there are some that have the indecency to compare it to Kubrick's masterpiece The Shining. This is all wrong... 1408 is just another Stephen King story, there is nothing special about it... no horror, no suspense, not one single moment of creepiness. Cusak gives an OK performance, but the director does not manage to create an unsettling atmosphere for the story. 1408 is not a horror movie and the PG-13 rating does not help at all.
It is difficult to create an effective horror story nowadays, especially to a generation that either gets scared on teen slasher films or the opposite, grizzly violence and torture films. 1408 does none of the above, but tries to explore supernatural phenomena failing undoubtedly. It takes more than computer generated ghostly images and a sense of madness to develop an effective horror film. For example, Dario Argento, captured the essence of the supernatural in his films Suspirira and Inferno. But one does not have to go back to the 70s or 80s to find good horror movies... some recent great horror: House of 1000 Corpses, Dog Soldiers, Cabin Fever, Hostel, May, 28 Days Later.
1408 delivers nothing special for the passionate horror connoisseur.