***SPOILERS*** WHY it's scary.

Rating: 10/10 (22 November 2008)

**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS** READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WANT NO INFO ON THIS FILM!!!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!
1408. Mirrors. My own analysis.
Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers.
Someone in one of the threads remarked about how the theatrical version was better than the director's cut "for once." Agreed.
Someone in yet another thread remarked that maybe he'd died in the original surfing accident.
Agreed. (Maybe. I saw this day before yesterday, missed the first few minutes completely, and had to catch the alternate ending later on.) Both basically say the same thing, but the theatrical version made it more creepy and ambiguous and to me, more appealing...lots of different little flow charts going on with that one. In this case, less shock = more ACTUAL terror.
(Anyone who thinks Cusack is not a GREAT actor after this and High Fidelity is just mad. Try carrying a film almost completely by yourself. He's a master at this.) Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, everything adds up to thirteen! Must mean it's evil or bad luck.
No.
It's superstition and misdirection.
The real story is about illusion and reflection.
I'd had a question about how the room looked so retro-modern and updated when no one could or would go in there for more than a few minutes at a time without being in danger (was a sticky point for me, but--the engineer could have been part of the room, just as the receptionist ended up being, just as Olin may have been all along--food for thought).
Maybe people see the room the way they WANT to see it. "I've been here before..." You see what you WANT, but DON'T want... or NEED, but DON'T need... to see when you're in the room.
For a time during his ordeal, Enslin was in his own home, safe and sound, after a surfing accident.
"Whew! This was all a dream!" But, the room is always with you.
It's your conscience; it's your most excruciating pain; it's your pathos; it's your love; it's your regret; it's your triumph; it's your disgrace; it's your greatest joy; it's your loneliness; it's your darkest fear; it's your wonderful relief; it's what you cannot change, but MUST accept; it's your life---it's your life that IS going to end at some point; it's your MIRROR.
It is the truth.
The room shows you YOURSELF. Maybe not even how you really are, but maybe how you perceive yourself to be, as it's all about images.
And that is why mirrors and mirror images are SO powerful in this film. It's why the very first unsettling thing we witness is the engraving on the cover of the bible (a symbol of any volume containing "beliefs") becoming a mirror image when he throws it back down into the drawer.
The room isn't hell.
The room isn't evil.
The room is a MIRROR.
A mirror of YOU.
And once you truly look into that mirror, you can't ever again deny what it is you saw looking back at you.
Scary stuff.