SomeoneMovie Review: 1408
July 3rd 2009 13:16
Premise: A jaded paranormal investigative author (John Cusack) travels around debunking supposedly haunted locales, despite the fact he has never seen a ghost. That is, until he decides to stay at the notorious room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, despite the strong protests from the hotel's manager (Samuel L. Jackson).
First up, I am a huge fan of both John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, so my perceptions of this movie may be a little biased. However, I don't think that is the reason I like this movie so much.
Acting: This movie is basically a one man show, centered entirely around John Cusack's character Mike Enslin. Mr Jackson puts in a suitably ominous performance as the hotel's manager, but the focus is firmly on Cusack, who puts in a fine performance.
Script: I've read a few reviews that say this movie is illogical... and to these naysayers, I have this response: You can find flaws in anything if you look hard enough. However, the flaws in this movie's script are not nearly enough to ruin it for me. Another thing I like about the script is that it doesn't even attempt to explain why the room is 'haunted'. Alot of movies fall flat when they venture off into crappy explanations, and I'm glad 1408 isn't one of them.
Direction: the directing from Mikael Håfström is pretty excellent. The movie is a tension-machine, and in several scenes it is so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. As I've mentioned in other reviews, I generally like a good mix of tension and gore in my horrors, but this movie shows that you don't need alot of gore to make a great horror. My housemate watched this one with me, and she reckons she'll have trouble sleeping tonight.
Score: I was surprisingly impressed by the musical accompaniment to 1408. A tension-based movie can sometimes fall flat with a dull and lifeless score, but the music used in this one adds immensely to the tense atmosphere... especially the use of The Carpenters' 'We've Only Just Begun'...
Effects: This one is high-budget, and the effects are pretty top notch. CGI is used, but quite sparingly compared to other high budget films I've seen recently. However, it is effective when it is used, and the more traditional effects are also effectively used.
Overall: I have a growing fondness for tension-based horror, based on excellent movies like this one. I'm even thinking about revoking my gorehound status and becoming a terror-maniac. Who would have guessed?
Hey, is that a pig flying past my window?
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Comment by samaritan
Fringe Faith
Samaritan's Stories
The dark red on black makes your blog really hard to read. There's been a couple of times when I went to read one of your posts, but gave up because it seemed like too much hard work. I stuck with this one because I really like 1408. But it's much easier when the words stand out and you don't need to concentrate so much in order to figure out each word.
Anyway, I really liked 1408. I'm a bit of a Stephen King fan, so that was one reason. But another reason is I definitely prefer the horror that relies more on suspense and terror, rather than gore.
Samaritan
Comment by Michelle Sweeney
Competition Queen
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I am a huge John Cusack fan and love head screw thrillers but this one really degraded fast into cliche and predictability...the heavy handed third act left me feeling it was a wasted opportunity. It became laughably silly when it tried to subjugate smarts for suspense. It really had that seen it all before and done better vibe. Not a terrible film, but far from quality.
Sure you can fault most movies of this type with logic, but this one was just insulting because it lagged enough for us to see the contradictions as it played out. (Unlike say Identity which was silly too, but entertaining enough to get past until you left the theatre)
Comment by Someone
Evil Pleasures
Random Musings on Life, Love and Everything
Let's Get Down To Business
Sure, maybe it's only a gem when compared to War of the Dead or Komodo vs Cobra, but in my eyes a gem nonetheless