1408 Review (no spoilers) - Great flick

Rating: 9/10 (9 July 2007)

I went to see 1408 this last weekend and was shocked by how good it was. I remember the short story from Stephen King's Everything's Eventual. I've even reread it since seeing the movie. The filmmaker really nailed the details of the story, even the clothes described (hawaiin shirt). Not only that, part of the dialog to the movie (the main character's dialog) was cribbed whole from King's own introduction to the story in the anthology. Not only that, but King himself is heartily endorsing the movie. There's been A lot of bad Stephen King movies (and more than a few bad books), but I read King's articles in Entertainment Weekly and he and I share A lot of the same likes and dislikes. If he dug it, I knew it would be good.
When I took my wife to it, it was with the stipulation that the movie wasn't horror, that it was a slick ghost story with horror elements, but much more along the lines of a thriller. She wasn't thrilled to go and I could foresee what happened at 29 Weeks Later happening again (her curling into a fetal ball and going to a happier place...the crap she has to put up with being married to me).
The movie unfolded. Suffice it to say, it was one of the best, scariest rides I've taken in the movies in recent memory. Forgetting the couple of jump-scares (there's a few), the feeling of utter terror permeates the movie. Every time you think you know where its going, it turns 90 degrees in a completely unsuspected direction. By the time its over, it was amazing.
Now, I understand people are referencing The Shining in their reviews. That's understandable. King wrote both (although I do prefer the Kubrick movie to the piece of crap that was on TV a few years ago) and it does have to do with a haunted hotel. But that's where the similarities end. What I compare this to is much more of Jacob's Ladder, the 1990 Adrian Lyne mindscrew starring Tim Robbins. Both are about the internal effects of trauma, about how the haunted can also be the haunter.
This was a great movie, one which surprised me about 20 times. Still not 100% sure of everything in the movie. There are loose ends, a few little plot gaps, but the acting is top notch (Cusack for Oscar?) and the directing was superb. My hats off to Mikael Håfström. He's a directing talent to watch. He just got added to my 'don't care what the flicks about, he's directing' list. Romero is on that list too (although after Bruiser...)