One for Not Great

Rating: 1/10 (10 September 2007)

Awful film, containing re-hashed ideas of earlier Stephen king based films, as well as terribly executed cinematography effects that I'm guessing were meant to match Hitchcock. I seen the vertigo shot (track in, zoom out; or vice versa) done about three times in this film, and each time it looked absolutely terrible.
John Cusack's whole character arc was simple enough to map out after the opening 5 minutes of the film, and subsequent development was little to none. With the action predominantly limited to one room, and one actor, the introduction of the Dictaphone was essential, yet increasingly became tedious. Without it we would of had a silent movie, or more likely just had Cusack going more and more mental, and jabbering on to himself more and more as the film progressed.
The presence of Samuel L Jackson, albeit a small presence, may help bring in a bigger audience for the film, and the few scenes with him in merit this as they are by far the best the film has to offer. Everything else is standard-chills horror, which lacks in both tension and ingenuity. If your wanting interesting ,intelligent, and somewhat scary horror, then avoid! If your looking for something to dull you into sleep, then 1408 might just have found a purpose for its existence.