1408

Rating: 2/10 (5 September 2007)

The movie attracted me because of 2 reasons  Samuel Jackson and Stephen King.
The story is about an author Mike Enslin (John Cusack) who does not believe in ghosts and as part of his search to see ghost, his work is to go and stay in haunted hotels so that he can write books like "10 nights in haunted hotels". Mike selects a famous New York Hotel Dolphin; room number 1408 to spend a night. The reason is, in that hotel 56 people have died in past 40 years, and nobody has survived for more than 1 hour in the hotel room. Mike Enslin checks in the hotel and experiences ghost, but survives the 1 hour.
The build up to the movie was good. But once John Cusack is inside the room and the Director Mikael Hafstrom starts using usual gimmick and tricks to scare the audience, the movie falls flat on its face. Personally I did not find a single scene in the movie that was scary. There was no suspense too in the unfolding of the story. Whatever happens is so expected that I did not experience any thrill.
John Cusack shows some signs of good acting, but he is not able to rise above the poor scripting.
Samuel Jackson was playing the minor insignificant role of Hotel Manager - Not much to write about any department of the movie.
If the purpose was to scare the audience with ghost experience, the director fails in scaring audience. The movie according to me is a dud! (Stars 2 out of 10)