Cusack finally does a good job outside his comfort zone

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2007)

Ever since "Better Off Dead", John Cusack has specialized in comedies from independent-minded writers and directors where he plays neurotic intellectuals. And nearly every time he has worked outside that zone, he's fallen flat on his face (e.g. "Con Air", "Runaway Jury"). In "1408", for the first time in his career, Cusack has made a good movie that can't be labeled indie or comedy, although he still plays a neurotic intellectual.
Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a writer of haunted hotel tour guides. Prior to his current career, he wrote a critically acclaimed novel that sold poorly and is now out-of-print. He learns of room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York and is intrigued. When he tries to check into the room, the Dolphin's manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson in another in a series of silly wigs) warns him that nobody has spent more than an hour in the room and lived. They have a heated argument that reveals the crux of the rest of the film: Enslin admits that he does not believe in ghosts or haunted rooms, and Olin accuses him of not believing in anything outside of or bigger than his own ego. This is important because once Enslin gets inside the room, in addition to the standard horror-movie tropes of slashers and ghosts, he is forced to relive his painful past: At one time, he was a happy family man with wife Lily (Mary McCormack) and daughter Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony) and they would read the Bible together. But when Katie died, Enslin renounced God and left his wife. And we also learn that Olin is in control of room 1408's supernatural evil.
Normally I don't like the washed-out look of DV, but in this case it worked in helping to create a dream-like environment inside the room. Also--unlike all too many horror films--nobody involved is slumming. The script by Matt Greenberg and Scott Alexander (from a short story by Stephen King) is well-written in the vein of an episode of the original "Twilight Zone". The acting is also uniformly good. Special mention must be given to Cusack, as he attempted another haunted hotel movie with "Identity" and failed. In that film, he just wasn't credible as a heroic ex-cop. But in "1408", I completely believed him as a cynical writer with a troubled past.
I didn't care too much for the fact that director Mikael Hafstrom stole all his visual cues from the greatest Stephen King adaptation and haunted hotel movie of all (Stanley Kubrick's version of "The Shining", which King himself hates). And Samuel Jackson should have been banned from wearing hairpieces after "The Negotiator". But the main reason I only give this film 7 out of 10 instead of 8 or 9 is the fake ending, where the audience is tricked into thinking this was all a dream. That may be fine for "The Wizard of Oz", but it has no business in a film aimed at grown-ups (David Lynch, this means you. I'm still mad at you for "Mulholland Drive"). Fortunately it's a bit like the Monty Python sketch where a man stands in front of a Soviet firing squad and suddenly wakes up in his mother's arms. "Thank God it was all a dream," he says. To which his mother replies, "No, dear. This is the dream, you're really about to be executed."
Overall, "1408" is a good thinking person's horror film, like "The Exorcist" or "The Sixth Sense". Although it doesn't quite measure up to those two, it is a far sight better than the usual teenage slasher fare out there. 7 out of 10.