1408 Review: One Room, One Hour, One John Cusack

A man who makes his living explaining away ghosts checks into a room that has killed 56 people. That is the whole engine of 1408, and it is a good one. The film, directed by Mikael Håfström and released in the United States on June 22, 2007, runs 104 minutes and stars John Cusack as Mike Enslin, a skeptical author of niche books about supernatural events he does not believe in.

It is a haunted-room movie with a single room, a single occupant and a clock. For most of its runtime, that is enough.

Trailer, via DimensionFilms.

Mike Enslin and the Postcard From The Dolphin

Enslin is cynical and skeptical by trade. While promoting his latest book in Hermosa Beach, California, he receives an anonymous postcard showing The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City. The message on it reads: “Don’t enter 1408.” He treats the warning as a challenge and travels to the hotel to request the room.

The hotel manager, Gerald Olin, played by Samuel L. Jackson, tries to talk him out of it. Olin explains that over the last 95 years, no one has lasted more than an hour inside 1408, and that the count of deaths stands at 56. He attempts to dissuade and bribe Enslin, repeatedly and without much warmth. Enslin holds firm and threatens legal action against the hotel. Preparations are made, reluctantly.

That is the first act, and it is the film’s cleanest stretch. Jackson gets one scene to lay out the rules, and he spends it well. The tagline sells the same idea the manager does: “The Dolphin Hotel invites you to stay in any of its stunning rooms. Except one.”

The Clock Starts at 60:00

Once Enslin is inside, he records his first impressions on a mini-cassette recorder. He calls the room ordinary and free of supernatural behavior, and reaches for a phrase for it: the “banality of evil.” Then the clock radio starts playing “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and the digital display flips to a countdown beginning at 60:00.

From there the room works on him. He sees ghosts of its past victims. He sees flashbacks of his deceased daughter Katie and his terminally ill father. He tries to leave, many times, and none of it works.

The film’s mechanics are worth setting side by side, because they are not doing the same job.

The list of things the room throws at him is long, and not all of it lands.

• The sprinkler system floods the room and short-circuits his laptop.
• The laptop starts working again when the temperature drops to subzero.
• A doppelgänger of Mike appears in the video chat window and urges Lily to come to the hotel room.
• The room shakes violently, throwing Mike into a picture of a ship in a storm, and water floods in.
• Mike finds himself reliving a surfing accident from before he entered the room.

Lily, Katie and the Laptop

Mary McCormack plays Lilly Enslin, Mike’s estranged wife. Mike uses his laptop to contact her and ask for help. That thread is the film’s attempt to give the hour a human cost, and it half works. The doppelgänger in the chat window is a clever turn, but the laptop is also where 1408 shows its age hardest. A haunted room that can short-circuit a machine and then bring it back at subzero temperatures is a good idea. A video chat window is a 2007 idea.

The stronger material is Katie. Jasmine Jessica Anthony plays her, and she appears in flashbacks alongside Mike’s father, played by Len Cariou. The room does not just frighten Mike. It reaches for the two losses he has not settled, and that is where Cusack does his most useful work. He is on screen for nearly all of 104 minutes, largely alone, and he holds it.

The supporting cast is thin by design. Tony Shalhoub appears as Sam Farrell. Isiah Whitlock Jr. plays the hotel engineer. Noah Lee Margetts is the bellboy. William Armstrong is Clay. Paul Birchard and Margot Leicester are Mr. and Mrs. Innkeeper. Alexandra Silber is a young woman at a bookstore. Most of them are gone before the door closes.

Where the Room Runs Out of Ideas

1408 is based on a Stephen King short story published in 1999. The screenplay is credited to Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. The film’s reputation rests on a simple bargain: one actor, one room, one hour on the clock. For about half its runtime, that bargain pays off.

The problem is that the room has no floor. Once the countdown starts, the film can do anything, and it does. Ghosts, water, cold, a doppelgänger, a surfing accident, a hospital. Each escalation is individually staged, but together they blur. A haunted room is frightening because of what it will not let you do. 1408 keeps letting itself do one more thing.

The hospital sequence is the clearest example. It reads as an escape, then as a trick, and the film spends real time there before pulling Mike back. It is the point where the movie stops being about a man and a room and starts being about a movie with a budget.

What survives is Cusack. He plays skepticism without smugness and fear without begging, and he makes the flashbacks to Katie land harder than any of the ghosts. Jackson’s single scene is the other keeper. Olin knows exactly what the room is and says so plainly, and the film is better every second he is on screen.

The Verdict on 1408

1408 grossed $133 million against a $25 million production budget, and it drew generally positive reviews from critics. That is a fair outcome for a film that is genuinely good at one thing and restless about everything else. The hour is the hook. The hour is also the ceiling.

The parts worth keeping are small and specific: the radio, the countdown, Olin’s warning, and the two dead people Mike cannot put down. The parts worth cutting are the ones that treat the room as a place where anything can happen, because a room where anything can happen is a room where nothing has to.

It is a horror film that trusts its lead and does not fully trust its own premise. Cusack and Jackson make the first act feel inevitable. The second act makes it feel optional.

6.4 of 10.

1408 · horror movies · John Cusack · movie review · Samuel L. Jackson · Stephen King