Like a schooner lost at sea...

Rating: 5/10 (14 November 2017)

56 deaths have plagued an allegedly evil room on the 14th floor of an older hotel in New York City; writer John Cusack, once an author of fiction but now a specialist in books that debunk supernatural phenomena, is warned by the hotel manager not to check in--first and foremost because he doesn't want to clean up the mess. Well-mounted and made horror freak out, adapted from Stephen King's short story by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, is literate, polished and solidly enacted by Cusack as the skeptical (and atheist!) room guest. Director Mikael Håfström, despite suffering a case of "Shining"-itis, cannily mixes in sly humor with the shocks, as well as detailed minutiae which viewers might not catch on a first viewing. It should play well with aficionados of the genre, though others may find the ensuing violence assaultive (it bludgeons the audience). Also, the emphasis on assorted grotesqueries is more unpleasant than scary. ** from ****