Despite a captivating 1.st half and good acting, "1408" fails to deliver as a unique and original scary movie

Rating: 6/10 (30 September 2007)

Haven't we all seen this somewhere before??? Somebody trying to escape a haunted place, ...c'mon, whoever thinks "1408" is fresh and unique is either a total movie layman or has a short-term memory. There is nothing new here, sure, the acting is pretty good (especially Sam Jackson's character), and the tension at the beginning of the story is great, but is there a law somewhere that clearly states that sometimes all further potential should be flushed down the toilet...I'v seen too many movies that go down a similar road and loose themselves in cliché's and copy/pasting of other movies.
Director Håfström has a great sense of character development and knows how to shot truly captivating dialogs, but whenever there was action instead of drama he became tepid and boring...the second half feels looooong and forgettable.
And some of the scenes in "1408" were truly stupid and boring...like Enslin trying to escape the room through the window...most people would first probably try knocking down the door for like two hours before even thinking about pulling a stunt like that, but Enslin is all prepped and ready to go just because the door didn't open the first time he kicked it. Then of course, you have to have the painful memories of seeing a home video and flashbacks from your past (something that in "1408"'s case is so obviously thrown at us beforehand I couldn't stop but just anticipate and expect it) Then there was the matter of lousy effects that made the old victim flashbacks more annoying than amusing.
I hate this movie, not because it's bad (cos it's not, the first half is actually great), but because it's like so many other failed attempts of trying to give us a scare, and also because the only thing I'v heard about it were rave reviews about how unique and horrifying it is.