Rod Serling with a bludgeon

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2009)

John Cusack plays noted travel author Mike Enslin who earns his bread and cheese by visiting haunted places and then writing them up as the ubiquitous Top Ten Haunted .... We quickly observe however, that Enslin is somewhat of a fraud. He harbors cynicism and even though he sells these books to the public, he's more interested in feeding his own personal demon; to debunk the whole notion of a haunted anything. He's driven or haunted if you will by a quest to prove if only to himself that haunted houses and spirituality, and even religion, is all a lot of nonsense.
When he receives an anonymous post card inviting him to spend a night in a haunted NYC hotel room, room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel to be exact, Enslin of course meets his match.
From the opening frames, "1408" constructs an effective anticipatory pace- roller coaster style, and thats obviously vital in a scary film. I especially enjoyed the conversation between Cusack and the forever and needlessly angry Samuel L. Jackson. He's still that of course, but good direction here has him properly harnessed and enjoyable for a change as he does an excellent job as the obligatory "don't go in there" hotel manager. Of note to Jackson fans, in spite of the movie poster, Jackson is a supporting character at best and on film for all of 7 minutes, maybe 8.
From the effective buildup we enter at last, the haunted hotel room and the fun begins, and there the fun soon ends. Indeed the remainder of the film has us locked in the evil room with Cusack. We start slowly with some truly creepy and memorable images before eventually and all too inevitably, the full Hollywood special effects ghost treatment, floods, fire, ice, make their dreaded appearances. Some frights are really effective and for me the 15-20 minutes where the scary stuff happens sorta makes the entire film OK. But that all happens and the horror peaks and passes way too quickly. Before it ever gets really terrifying, our roller-coaster is making the slow boring return to the platform via the maudlin sub story line.
I say again however, this is a good movie - using the grading scale sadly needed in the year 2009. Its good. But in keeping pace with all modern films "1408" has way too much cowbell and the special effects orgy eventually becomes boring, no matter how much you like this sorta stuff. I liken film viewing these days to hanging onto a greased pole. I'd say it took a good hour into this before I lost interest and slid off into the kitchen for some Oreos.
Yet my biggest criticism, really my only substantive criticism is that "1408" apart from actually being watchable to the finish, fails to distinguish itself as a horror film. It breaks no new ground whatsoever, whether in terms of fright excitement, plot twist or even human drama. There's tons of unanswered questions, but not the provocative kind, more the kind that lead you to believe a lot of this wasn't well thought out. But I'll leave that up to you.