1408 – The Movie

Last night, I finally got around to watching “1408“, a movie based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name, and featuring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.

I’m a fan of John Cusack’s, especially his lighter comedy roles, he’s a great actor who can take on many different roles so naturally, and who picks his roles really well; so I try to never miss a movie he’s in.

I can’t claim to be a big fan of Stephen King though; I loved some of his works and their movie adaptations, but I was also let down a number of times, especially when the stories took weird twists towards including a bunch of unexpected aliens in the story in a pretty annoying way.

Anyway, back to 1408, it’s about a writer, who specializes in debunking paranormal occurrences and ghost stories, who checks into a fabled room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel, despite being warned by the Hotel manager that it is an evil room; And then genuine terror begins.

The movie started off really well, and got scarier by the minute, building up that creepy atmosphere that has you all alert and all; in other words: scary in the good old sense of scary movies, not the torture-porn or teen-startle stuff studios are putting out these days; but two thirds of the way into the movie, things started falling apart for me, and the movie just started losing my interest; I don’t know it just felt like they were padding it to make it longer, which kind of made the ending a bit less powerful for me.

Anyway, all in all, it is a good movie; I liked the idea of the story, the evolution of its events, and the acting.
Do I think it could have been done better? Maybe.
Do I recommend it? For people who are into this genre of movies, yes, it is an interesting movie, and there aren’t that many of its type out there these days.

Overall, I’d give it:
StarStarStarHalf StarNo Star

[More: IMDB, Amazon]