6 Skulls, no I give it 5 Skulls...

Rating: 5/10 (30 June 2007)

When the horrific content of this movie was triggered by a Carpenter's song, I thought to myself, "This is going to be some scary ____." This is true because as we all know the Carpenter's were the epitome of evil. 1408 was a well acted movie. Mr. Cusack, Mr. Jackson and all the other folk did an outstanding job. BUT, this movie lacked something. The ultimate reason we have movies is to be entertained. Each movie tries to do this in its own special way. When I can sit and name the movie that the particular gag is from and I am doing so while watching the movie, is the movie doing its job? Call it an overactive imagination, boredom, or what have you; when the story is not engulfing me, I am not entertained. Or am I? So it wasn't original. So it wasn't particularly frightening (except the carpenters). So what I didn't care about this poor man's back-story. So what if I was wondering if I had left the iron on (especially ironic since I don't own one). I laughed a couple of times. The movie did have a pretty good visual style. It did have some jump in your seat moments, I'll give it that. I am not a particular fan of using extremely loud sound cues to try to frighten me. This movie, like so many in recent cinematic history, seemed to have to tell you where to be scared by giving you the audible cue. I don't feel as if I was witness to the best movie, nor was I witness to the best horror film. I also don't feel as if I was cheated. I just left feeling unfulfilled, the sort of feeling I get when I go to get my favorite ice cream and they are out of it, so I take second best. The experience was still a good one, definitely worth having, it just was not quite as satisfying as I would have liked.