1408 is alright

Rating: 5/10 (28 June 2007)

Lots of people are getting carried away with this movie. It was pretty good. It even convinced me to like John Cusack. You see, I don't think I've seen a Cusack movie before, I've tended to see trailers of his movies that occur average at best, indulgent mediocrity at worst. He has one of those faces, you know, he reminds you of somebody you never liked from school.
Anyway, John is a cynical author who checks into the most haunted room in the universe. He does this against the will of Hotel Manager Samuel L Jackson (acting in usual cruise control). Soon the room transforms into a noisy earthquaking-harrowing-winter-wonderland where dead relatives hang out to haunt John. The bathroom stretches, the pictures wobble, the incidental music intensifies, the screaming mortifies, the sound effects nullify, the knee jerks quantify and in the end you have an assault on the senses worthy of any post-four hour line up for a Universal Studios theme park ride!
I think they could have significantly reduced the use of dramatic music, silence is often much more effective in horror flicks. Also, if I have to complain (I hate complaining you see), the ending wasn't resolved in a satisfying way. I thought the slight twist was dealt with too swiftly and too lightly.
Overall, not bad.