Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L Jackson, Mary McCormack
Director: Mikael Hafstrom
Scheduled release: Now showing

You do not have to read the original short story 1408 (part of the longer anthology, Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales), to know that the central idea comes from author Stephen King. In fact, one may assume that the movie was pitched in production meetings as ‘The Shining in New York’. And while it’s true this cinematic take on 1408 recycles a great many narrative strings tied to King’s overall body of work, it somehow modifies them into a surprisingly fresh, tight and effective thriller.

Renowned travel writer Mike Enslin (John Cusack), like most characters in King’s oeuvre, is haunted by his own demons. Hiding behind alcohol and a refined cynicism, he scours the country for legitimate haunted habitats, rating rooms on a “shiver scale”. A bed-and-breakfast with good food but moderate mood gets five skulls, in his opinion. This movie, based on Enslin’s most terrifying encounter, would receive a solid eight.

An unsigned postcard in Enslin’s mailbox simply warns him not to stay in room 1408 at New York’s Dolphin Hotel. Intrigued, the author tries to reserve the room and is rebuffed. Enslin pursues the matter, shrugging off repeated warnings by the facility’s firm manager (Samuel L Jackson in a bit part) to not enter the room. But to stay out would mean we have no movie, and so Cusack makes himself comfortable in the spacious but undoubtedly spooky hotel for a nightmare to remember.

Director Mikael Hafstrom, who last helmed the forgettable Jennifer Aniston-Clive Owen thriller Derailed, ups his visual tricks to rival King’s experienced prose. Some of 1408 deals in cheap parlour games. Clocks keep running when unplugged from their sockets, windows slam on people’s hands, and the walls crack and bleed.

But we need to discover the root of Enslin’s sadness to really connect with the man, and Hafstrom invents a number of clever ways to stage flashbacks that never seem cheap or forced. He also plays with sounds throughout the film, placing children’s voices where they don’t belong and removing sounds when tones should be deafening. It’s suitably unnerving.

1408 is gruesome and psychologically chilling, not gory and shockingly gross. The cynical Enslin is a role tailored to Cusack’s strengths. The actor has played the skeptic before, and usually maintains a detached level of disbelief in even the most mundane of situations. Enslin is a stock character, but Cusack tears down his conventions to tap into an emotional core of paranoia and fear that lends smarts to this admitted genre picture. It also helps that Cusack, much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, holds a touch of madness behind his eyes. Ghost stories always work better when the terror affects an already haunted soul, and that description fits both Enslin and Cusack.

How has this movie, along with Hostel, Saw, and The Hills Have Eyes, become the accepted form of titillating terror in Hollywood? Movies of this ilk are abusive, demeaning, and unwatchable, and I’m dying for the current production cycle that grinds out this disgusting nonsense to end.

1408 suggests a step in the right direction. This and Vacancy, a Sony release from earlier this year, prove filmmakers can operate within the confines of an established genre and still elicit healthy scares. Shock has lost its value. The real money is in legitimate fear.

Sean O’Connell