what horror should be

Rating: 10/10 (25 June 2007)

This is the best scary movie I have ever seen. The simplicity of the premise helps it avoid any of the traps other movies fall into when they try to explain the supernatural events. Samuel L. Jackson has a line that sums the beauty of this movie quite well. It's something like: "I didn't say anything about phantoms... It's an evil f*cking room." That's it. That's the premise. A guy who doesn't believe in spooks, to use the Tin Man's phrase, goes into this evil f*cking room, and the evil f*cking room messes with his head. There isn't a reliance on gore or phobias - this movie is universally scary.
John Cusak is phenomenal. He makes you forget that it's supposed to be boring to watch one guy in one room for a full hour. Every second of the deterioration of his sanity is captivating.
As the movie approached the finish, I thought about all the possible endings that would ruin the movie. It toyed with each one of them before settling on the ultimately satisfying conclusion, perhaps poking fun at the trite endings of so many other promising horror flicks. This movie came out of nowhere and amazed me.