Rod Serling's Night Gallery did this better

Rating: 1/10 (11 October 2007)

I went into this film with high expectations. I had heard some good buzz on this, and being a Stephen King fan, I went in with high hopes. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The movie opens, and I have to admit, I was a bit worried based on the really cheesy dialog, but figured the scares were coming soon enough, and maybe I would see past that. Well, the scares NEVER came!
The plot, such as it is, concerns a writer (John Cusack) who investigates "Paranormal" activity in supposedly haunted hotel rooms around the country. What he finds however is always a tourist trap to lure people to out of the way hotels, whose glory days are long past. While researching his next trip, he receives an invite to the Dolphin Hotel in Manhattan. Yet another wild goose chase so he thinks, but when he checks into the hotel and tries to reserve room 1408, the supposedly haunted room, he is met by the hotel manager, (Sam Jackson in a phoned in performance) Paycheck anyone!? who tries to convince Cusack to take another room as no one has lasted more than an hour in that room. The manager conveniently hands Cusack a fat folder on all the suicides, and dead bodies found in 1408. Nothing will stop Cusack from writing his story. So away we go...
This is where I thought the scares would come in and was I ever disappointed. Pedestrian "scares" that a first year film student would know better than to try! So utterly boring is this turd that the only reason I stayed up to watch it, is because I was already in too deep. The room tries to mess with Cusack by turning radios on and off, and turning the heat up! Wow! Scary! Puhlease...The subplot concerning Cusack's dead daughter is really boring and the ending, if you make it that far, is ridiculous, and so cheap, you wonder why people didn't ask for their money back after leaving the theater.
As far as haunted house stories go, check out an episode of the 70's anthology series "Night Gallery" called "A Question of Fear" starring Leslie Nielsen as a mercenary who is bet $15,000 he can't spend one night in a haunted house. REAL chills, and a GREAT ending, the exact opposite of this waste of time, 1408.