Wicked delight

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2007)

My friends stared at me dumbstruck when I told them that I consider 1408 as a black comedy rather than a horror flick. '' Dude, did we just watch the same movie? '' one of them exclaimed with an ironic look on his face.
It starts of with the introduction of Mike Enslin ( John Cusack ), a traumatized writer that lost all faith in God and the supernatural after the death of his child. He spends his days trying to uncover paranormal occurrences as a lie by writing guides on the paranormal. A twisted leap of faith brings him in contact with the ''haunted'' room 1408, that is said to have a way to make its inhabitants kill itself in less than an hour. Manager Olin ( a short, not quite memorable role by Samuel L. Jackson ) does everything in his power to stop Enslin from going to this room. But,as you might have guessed, he fails and Enslin does go. From that point on the story unfolds as a roller-coaster of nightmarish situations for our cynical protagonist.
The thing with 1408 is that it's not that scary. Or,to be precise, its premise is scary but the outcome certainly isn't. But that doesn't make it an unpleasant movie. On the contrary. I really enjoyed the sadistic battle between Enslin and the horrible nightmares that ''room 1408 '' forces upon him. The room has the fiendishly power to be one step ahead of Enslin. Every attempt to escape culminates into more awkward situations. Not frightening, but cynical on a funny way. To give an example: at a certain point Enslin finds out that there is someone on the opposite of the hotel. He waves, trying to get attention, and discovers that this person is actually mimicking his every move. It is himself that he's seeing, and not some person that can come to his rescue. And than suddenly this mirrored version of himself is attacked by a screaming weirdo with a knife. He turns around, and...yeah, he's also being attacked. And this is just one example of the many tortures that will occur during the rest of the film.