I'm Eating My Words
Written: Jun 24 '07 (Updated Sep 03 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: cool premise, great performances, some real potential
Cons: familiar elements cloak its theme, making it appear like a series of special effects
The Bottom Line: The premise is cool and the performances stunning but it adds up to nothing in the end, because it's meaningless.
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| bilavideo's Full Review: 1408 |
I began my initial review of this film with the following:
"There was a moment, early on, when I thought this film would add up to something. Somewhere in 'sound and fury' I realized that moment had passed. Whether you call it a horror film or simply a supernatural thriller, 1408 is a haunted house flick writ small. Imagine something like The Shining, but instead of a whole hotel, imagine the whole thing happening in one room. This is usually the making of an 80-minute themepark ride, with the usual things that go bump in the night. But the trailers made it look like there was something more. Trailers do that."
I didn't write that stuff to be a jerk. That's how I felt about this film the first time I saw it. Fortunately for me, I let my teen-aged kids drag me to a second viewing, where my second-helping tasted better than the first.
1408 is a film about a man who doesn't believe in ghosts. Like Stephen King, who wrote the short story on which the film is based, Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a writer of creepy tales but in this case, he's more of an Amazing Randy, debunking the lore around haunted places by living in them and writing about his experience. He's following the pattern that has made him a bestseller - with titles like Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards, and Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles - when he gets a postcard from the Hotel Dolphin, in New York City. It says, "Don't stay in room 1408."
Assuming this is a gimmick to get him to check in there, Enslin is surprised when the hotel goes out of its way to avoid renting him the room. Through his editor, Enslin goes so far as to threaten a lawsuit (utilizing a civil-rights law that requires the hotel to rent out any room that's vacant) to get hotel management to change their mind. So, why all the fuss?
Well, we find that out when Enslin meets with Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), the hotel manager, who again tries to convince Enslin not to check in. 1408 (whose numbers add up to 13 and is, because of standard practice, located on the hotel's 13th floor) is a room with a dark history. In 68 years, it has hosted 12 suicides and 30 natural deaths. As Olin puts it, "It's an evil f#@!$%in' room."
Skeptical and intrigued at the same time, Enslin insists on taking the room - only to discover that where there's smoke, there's generally fire.
In an attempt not to regurgitate the entire plot, I doted on the performances:
"This is a film whose strengths are to be found in its performances - particularly those of Cusack and Jackson. While Jackson has the smaller role, he speaks as if he's doing everything in his power to prevent a homicide. If you think about it, his task is almost Herculean. In the short amount of screentime dedicated to his character, Jackson has to convince us that we don't want to go in that room - and do so in a way that doesn't come off absurd, lightweight or shrill."
"Cusack, in the meantime, has the weight of this film upon his shoulders as he evokes a quiet cynicism. His character doesn't believe any of this nonsense, partly because there's almost nothing left to scare him. As the film reveals, this is a man who has seen a thing or two, in real life, and what he has seen makes the supernatural pale by comparison. As Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom pulls out all the stops, it's still up to Cusack to convince us that what we're seeing isn't just a phone commercial on speed. As Enslin speaks out loud into a tape recorder, we get the sense of a man for whom 'seeing is believing' and who, initially, doesn't believe what he's seeing. As his skepticism melts away, the real terror is not so much in what we see, in the anything-goes world of 1408, as what we see in Enslin's eyes as the improbable becomes undeniable."
I stand by those observations. But after seeing this film a second time, I no longer feel the way I did when I first wrote the following:
"But what do you do with all this once you wind it up? What statement did Stephen King want to make when he wrote the short story that was adapted by Matt Greenberg (Reign of Fire), and then rewritten by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski? (Agent Cody Banks, Man on the Moon, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Ed Wood)"
That first time, I came expecting something more than a second helping of The Shining, and when I saw so many similar elements, I was unable to see past them. That's probably why I wrote:
"This, for me, is where the whole thing melts. A guy rents a room, against the warnings of those who say it's haunted - even evil. He goes through some weird, terrifying events. And then what? Classically, the guy has to either slay his dragon - by using what he's learned - or go down, for failing to learn his lesson. King's ending never really worked, though maybe King chose it because he felt it fit the 'haunted hotel' genre of which he was clearly conversant. I don't know how Greenberg tried to end it, but the ending we get from Alexander and Karaszewksi is too abrupt and too empty. If you look closely enough, you can see what they were trying to go for - and so, perhaps, the blame can be leveled against Hafstrom, who spends more time giving us a three-ring circus and not enough attention on how his ending resolves the story - either from the perspective of plot or character."
There's an old saying about not seeing the forest for the trees. The problem with my first viewing was that I could see the forest just fine. I just couldn't see the trees. The elements shared, between this film and The Shining, are there - but underneath the obvious is another layer, a theme that is quite different from The Shining. This is a story that uses the genre of the haunted house as material for a discussion about private, personal, hauntings. In the typical haunted house story - including films like The Shining and The Amityville Horror, not to mention The Haunting and The Grudge - real estate becomes infected by evil. Something awful - usually an unspeakable murder - has trapped so much bad karma that it's hazardous to enter. Whether they're angry or just eternally obsessed with what happened, the ghosts of the dead haunt a certain place, threatening to possess or harm those who tread upon their hallowed, haunted, ground.
But this is a story about another kind of haunting, one that makes it so much more apt to set it in a single hotel room. "1408" isn't so much about haunted rooms so much as haunted people. The evil there is only partly the evil left behind by others. It's also the evil one brings because the living can be just as haunted, just as tormented, just as insular and just as dark as any ghost. The typical haunted-house story is about ghosts. "1408" is about demons, the kind that turn any person into a walking-talking haunted house.
My failure to see this the first time explains conclusions like the following:
"In other words, sh#t happens. It happens for 94 minutes - and then doesn't. Credits roll. We leave. As Shakespeare's MacBeth would say: 'Sound and fury signifying nothing.' And that's too bad. There's a lot more here than in the typical haunted-house story set to film. This is a story with real potential to have been more than simply 94 minutes of special effects - and the performances reflect that. Ironically, the solutions were right there, as easy to implement as plucking low-hanging fruit. Instead, the film shuts down with the efficiency of a traveling carnival as it races to get out of town."
Thematically, this film has less in common with films like The Shining than with Memento. This is a film about sadness and sorrow, about people who haunt themselves, about the vast wasteland we create when we refuse to move on, and about a kind of Groundhog's Day full of nightmares. It is best enjoyed as a metaphor about the degree to which we let evil posses us. I'm sorry I didn't see that the first time around, but I'm grateful I had kids - and a discount theater - to drag me to a second viewing. The Greeks were right. Sometimes, second thoughts are better.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Scary Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Pacing
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Epinions.com ID:
bilavideo
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Member: Bill Kilpatrick
Location: The geographic center of the theater.
Reviews written: 711
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Screenwriter
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