a lil twist of mind

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2007)

40 min left to the end, I was slightly scared and pretty tensed and pleased by the movie. I was even comparing it with "the shining". of course the fact that both stories happened inside a hotel(room) helped a bit too.
But let's go back to 1408. It was mostly a 1-man's movie. I'd say the director made a pretty smart decision choosing John Cusack for the main character Mike. His performance was so persuading and vivid that I felt every mind changing and all the piled up fears.
30 min left to the end. The whole terrifying experience of Mike turned out to be a "dream" he had during his comma caused by the hit on the head of his surfing board. I couldn't be more disappointed. I simply hate using "the dream" as the reason to any super natural stories. Lame! What kind of cheesy story is it? How overrated Stephen King is! While I was wondering what's there left to say for the next 30 min, the director successfully got me tensed again!
It was entertainment right there! Worth a round of applause!
But the music sounded so sentimental during the scene when Mike decided to burn down the room. So Hollywood!
Oh, my heart pounded once more when the hotel manager (by Samuel Jackson) was listening to the tape inside his car. Good old little trick.
I wasn't really happy that it didn't give an clear answer to why all these happened. But then it's just a movie, which already served its purpose to entertain me. I guess it's a pretty good one after all. Not a waste of time I would say.