Well done nowhere near impressive

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2014)

Stephen King is fantastic writer, he can take the simplest idea and build a whole story around to keep you captivated as you live the book. On the big scream most of the writer's talent vanishes: it is only one depiction of a story for which you would have build your own images based on the author's words. And the images summoned are countless times more powerful than the clean ones an adaptation will patch together.
1408 illustrates this point perfectly: the horror in room 1408 is beyond what the hero had imagined because it was not about some random ghost or spooky decoration, but really about his own personal tremors building up deep-rooted anguish and fear. In a book you would make up images that will really put you under the skin of the hero, in a movie... it is only a movie.
So 1408 is not bad, it's just that it cannot create the same claustrophobic tension as a good horror book. Visually the average user is too well-used to those haunted places' set of supernatural happenings.