1408: Review
After another wonderful dinner conversation with the family this time on the topic of horror in writing and film, which as you will all probably be away is something I hold very dear in my sick blackened heart, and putting up with some more gems of tremendous ignorance from my wonderful sister I was resound this evening to engage with some terror………It is a Saturday evening, surely I can find something (he says)….
*Checks television listings*…….Well balls.
As the kind of horror I was looking for was not the kind that Aldous Huxley was trying to warn us all about I decided not to be satisfied with the horror that the British Broadcasting Corporation are screening at peak time on a Saturday night and so went on a wander in search of that dying breed of business, a video shop.
To cut down a long story I have slated my perverse lust for some horror and am now going to tell you all what I thought about it partly to make my opinion seem important and informed and partly so I have something to write about on this LJ that doesn’t involve saying much about me.
So without further filler garbage, let’s get critical.
WARNING: I am going to try and keep this as spoiler free as I can but just to be on the safe side I am sticking up this warning.
To give you the basics 1408 is a 2007 horror staring John Cusack and Samuel motherfucking L. motherfucking Jackson which seemed interesting enough at a glace because of the obvious departure from roles they are usually found in (I mean I didn’t even hear Jackson say “motherfucker” once!) this especially applies to Cusack who was notable for his awesome performance in High Fidelity and unfortunately for taking part in that big pile of shit Say Anything…
I actually remembered 1408 catching my attention way back when it was released but it passed me by presumably because back when I was 17 I spent most of my cash eating Subway and most of my time wondering why girls weren’t impressed when I told them I was editor of my Sixth Form’s magazine and chair of the Debating Society….
In any case I was resound to pick it up because I had managed to catch and very much enjoyed The Mist, another Stephen King adaption that played the game of well-paced original horror very well and I imagined 1408 as a not so distant relative of that. A very basic summary would be that the film follows the disillusioned and sceptical horror writer Mike Enslin as he attempts to debunk the infamous room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York, the room has been the site of dozens of deaths many of which have been documented as suicides while others have been from ‘natural causes’. Samuel L. Jackson plays the Dolphin Hotel manager, who is entirely convinced that that room is nothing short of evil. His performance is the only one other than Cusack’s that is worth mentioning, Jackson manages to keep the balance between the hotel manager’s obvious fear of the room and his down to earth common sense, every part of his attempt to persuade Michael to stay out of the room is clear and most importantly, reasonable. There are a few other minor named dotted about but they are not really important….
This is because the whole film is essentially a one-man show where Michael must face the increasingly horrifying experiences in the room and it is through that that we gain glimpses into his true nature and the personal problems that have caused his life to take a turn for the worst. This really is a film about having to make do on your own, unlike The Mist which played with the notion of ‘who are the real monsters, the things outside…..or the people inside with you?’ 1408 is about total isolation, many of the apparitions that Mike encounters act merely as ghostly tape recordings. Playing out their final moments in a very mechanical fashion, not really being there to interact with. There is a subtle suggestion throughout that perhaps that is really what everyone has been doing all along.
A few moments really drive this home, the disillusioned Mike now an atheist almost boasting that there is nothing supernatural about the room and adding that even if there was there is no God so nothing could protect him. The character faces the horror he comes across with the tools his past experiences have equipped him with (which are also the things incidentally that drive him to stay in the room despite many warnings against it, go figure), willful cynicism and skepticism that stretches towards an absurdist’s nihilism. It is good stuff and for a massive genre fanboy such as myself it is akin to an illicit sexual thrill…..er I mean….. it is a joy to watch…… there are a few jumpy moments but it doesn’t rely on these at all and the parts I found most terrifying were when the Room didn’t seem to be doing much except providing the rope with which Michael is determined to hang himself with (I mean this in a figurative sense and feel the distinction is necessary because the room does do that literally at one point) not because of the room tormenting him but because of his own personal horrors and demons.
….now after having blatantly flashed my massive fanboy credentials I will say a few things about what is wrong about this film. Firstly the pacing is quite strong and I would argue that perhaps things move too fast to allow the atmosphere to be built up as much as it could have been. I hate to make the criticism of ‘too much stuff happened too quickly’ because it didn’t but there was a slight sense of the dark corners of the terrifying Room 1408 being a bit crowded which in a film that plays heavily upon isolation isn’t a good thing.
Secondly with several themes running through the film it was evident that keeping them constant throughout was difficult and so there is a sense of mood-whiplash at a few points with certain aspects of the story resurfacing at seemingly random intervals. I was also going to have a little rant about my dislike for the whole ‘No atheists in foxholes’ bollocks that Hollywood has some massive love affair with or at the very least an ugly illegitimate child by, but I will leave that for another time.
However these complaints are small and few about what I think is damn good movie with good characterisation (which is far from a staple of the horror genre) with a special place in my heart going to Michael for being that special blend of complex (though appearing simple) tragic and determined that is reminiscent of Sergeant Neil Howie or James Sunderland. It is a film that shows so much of what is brilliant in horror and is about much more than a haunted hotel more, and something much scarier to boot.
If you have managed to stomach reading this far then congratulations because that means you win and should feel free to claim your victory prize of posting to tell me how wrong I am or how stupid/pretentious my tastes and views are or about how Say Anything… is brilliant and gave you hope to find love or some shit…..
Thanks for reading.