1408 - Best Horror Film of the Summer so far...

Walking into 1408, I expected hotel horror would reach its end for a few years. Hostel and Vacancy are recent hotel horror films, while this seemed like a repeat of The Shining, one of Stephen King's horror classics.

Checking into 1408 is Michael Enslin (John Cusack), a writer who dedicates his books to visiting supposedly haunted places with a skeptic tone, believing "there are no ghosties and ghoulies." Behind his writing and nomadic life, he hides troubled feelings from being separated from his wife after the death of his daughter to disease. These feelings are drowned by alcohol at almost every turn. When Enslin arrives at the Dolphin Hotel to check out its notrious room, he is warned by its innkeeper (as only Samuel L. Jackson could warn him), "it's an evil ****ing room," where "no one lasts more than an hour."

Camped out with photos of previous tenants, a bottle of wine, and his trusty audiorecorder, Enslin faces scares and personal tramas as he discovers he's either losing his mind or trapped in an evil ****ing room. The combination of alcohol and coming to face with family issues, lead us to believe he's mad, while illusion (or delusions?) tell us it's an evil... well, an EVIL room.

Cusack's performance drives the movie for the first 30 minutes as a one-man show, where muttering to himself, we still completely understand his thoughts and fears. The movie grows in a steady climax as the clock ticks away at his hour, the room slowly goes from cousy to frozen hell. The Stephen King writing shines through with a new idea, as its not ghosts, but a nightmare designed specifically for Enslin, haunting him at every tragedy in his life and making him watch them over again. Samuel L. Jackson's warnings as the innkeeper are both true to the story and Jackson fans. (Yes, Jackson says "it's an evil ****ing room.")

Although the alcoholic writer in a hotel seemed too much like Stephen King repeating The Shining, I was pleasantly surprised to find this film is a much-needed revisit to what makes classic horror. It stays modern as well, with the occasional moments that aren't attempts to make you jump, but just keeps you on your toes with genuine creepiness. There are moments that remind you of The Shining, espically with mirrors and castrophopic camera angles. But the movie has a solid ending, answering the question of whether its sanity or evil playing with Enslin. Rated PG-13, it doesn't rely on blood to creep you out, but uses a very tense combination of helpless situations, well-respected personal drama, and the down-right spooky.

The rating keeps the movie marketable, and it will probably do very well at the box office. For memorability, Cusack's one-man performance carries much of the film, and unlike BUG, it's designed to be a movie, not a play. It's better understood (in the end) than The Shining, and King's name will make it one for the shelves. The steady combination used for a smart climax makes the moving entertaining every step of the way, and while I'm against twist and double-twist endings, here the ending has resolve that allows the viewers to feel they did follow it correctly in the end, making it far from a cop-out. 1408 is marketable, memorable, and entertaining, and it would serve as a lesson to other horror directors that 1.) gore is not always needed and 2.) jumps are not always needed.

Cusack proves himself in the horror genre and King does it again.