The Banality of Spooks

Rating: 6/10 (23 September 2013)

Definite spoilers.
"1408" starts off extremely well. For about an hour into the story, it is about as creepy as first-class horror can get; then it turns into a John Cusack tour-de-force and little else.
A chubby-looking John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a writer reduced to authoring books debunking paranormal phenomena. He lives a continent away from his wife (Mary McCormack)plumping for California while she is holed up in NYC.
Though he tries to avoid the whole city of New York because his former wife lives there, Enslin finds the story of a haunted hotel room in the Big Apple too juicy to pass up.
The hotel management (with a bit-parting Samuel L. Jackson at the top of the food chain) tries to talk Enslin out of taking the room. Like all idiot lead characters who make horror books and movies possible, Enslin demands his rights to the unoccupied room. The management reluctantly relents.
At this point, "1408" is A-list horror. The rule of thumb for the best horror, whether written or on film, is that the unseen is always scarier. The walk Enslin takes to his room is indeed creepy. His first fifteen or twenty minutes on his own rank among the most effective horror on film.
From the time Enslin closes the door to his room, Cusack is practically a one-man show. By turns he freezes, he burns; he examines his situation rationally, he has the screaming meemies.
Early on, the famous "banality of evil" line from Hannah Arendt is mentioned. By the middle of the movie, "1408" begins to prove it as the movie frays at its seams.
This is not to say it doesn't have lots of clever ideas. It also has some of those really spooky "Ahhh! There's a bald guy with a claw hammer!" moments as well as its "I feel my skin creeping" moments. It also has very funny moments, too, as when the evil of room 1408 calls up with the voice of helpful room service.
The "skin creeping" moments are better, but after the first hour the movie gives way to showing just one awful thing after another until it ceases to become either creepy or spooky but simply on-going. It truly illustrates the banality of evil by itself becoming banal.
During the first half of the time Enslin spends in 1408 you're on the edge of your seat, desperate to find out whether he's going to live. During the second half, you're glancing repeatedly at your watch, thinking that if he's going to die he'd better do it before you do.
Some of the depicted spooky stuff does work, as when Enslin waves to the guy in the apartment across the street. But when the spooks appear fast and furiously they have to ratchet the music up a notch to make sure you know to be frightened. At your house you can always scare someone in a dark room by tip-toeing up behind them and yelling "Boo!" That's the level this movie sinks to.
The best thing about "1408" is that it focuses in on what traditional supernatural evil is supposed to do, i.e., play with one's mind. It doesn't really change the room or make blood or bile ooze from the walls, but it makes you see and hear stuff that isn't there until you do crazy things, like listen to your dog next door and shoot people, or vote Obama. And Cusack has flashbacks to some of the most painful moments of his life, meeting his deceased father; and his deceased daughter, who ranks right up there with the eeriest children in film history: Damien, the girl in "The Ring" with the bad hairdo and Jake Lloyd.
So while they nail evil in this movie, they also get too bound up in its banality. It starts out like the best horror movie ever, but its first class effects go on and on and on and on. And on. Though its alleged running time is only 104 minutes, it seems much longer.