Sunday, January 20, 2008

1408


Few days ago I saw the movie 1408, directed by Mikael Håfström. I must say, I wasn’t impressed. It didn’t work out for me but let’s start from the beginning.


1408 is the story about Mike Enslin (played by John Cusack) - man specialized in debunking paranormal occurrences. Basically, he is going from one to another so called haunted place and writes books about it afterwards. He never saw any ghost until he ended up in the room 1408 of the New York’s Dolphin hotel. We will also get to know that he got separated from his wife after the loss of their daughter due to cancer, and that he seemingly had a problematic relationship with his father. I’ll say this could be a good base for a horror story. From now on, you may choose to continue or to stop reading because some major spoilers are coming your way.

Room 1408 was promising for all horror lovers. First, the room was unavailable by default. The Dolphin hotel refused renting it. Mike Enslin had to search for legal means and advice in order to enter it. Second, there was hotel manager, mister Olin (played by Samuel L. Jackson) – a man determined to change Enslin’s decision and stop him from entering the room. Olin’s speech and a book of records of unfortunate events that occurred in the room 1408, filled with gore pictures and scary stories, were more than promising. It gets even better after Olin’s statement that no one survived in that room for more than one hour! One hour only. I had to prepare myself for the possible upcoming gore and horror events. But they won’t happen. That is, to say, nice contrast. You expect one thing but you get another one. All would be fine if it would make any sense.



So, yes, it wasn’t scary at all but that’s alright. Let’s see what we got. We got the absolute mix of several clichés, known to all that enjoy and watch the horror genre, myself included. The main problem is that this mix is very far from any good synthesis and acceptable meaning.

Our expectations are high. Remember, no one survived in that room for more than an hour. There was 56 recorded death cases and some of them were horrifying. Enslin is entering in spite of everything we know. And what happened? We are seeing ghosts jumping from the room’s window, a bleeding wall, water running down from a painting, a sort of like a zombie in a ventilation shaft and so on. All that we saw before and none that is actually life threatening to our guy, although he does react like being in some sort of a grave danger. I won’t say all. It won’t be interesting for those that actually want to see this movie.

There were two scenes that I love a lot. First one is when Enslin is trying to get help and he is waving to a guy that sits in a room in a building across the hotel. Pretty soon Enslin is becoming aware that the guy makes the same body movements like himself. In fact, the guy was himself. That was creepy. It was well made. And it was nice because it tells us that in our fears we are facing only ourselves and only we can rescue ourselves.



The second scene I love is the arriving of Enslin’s dead daughter. Enslin is crying while holding her and she is dying in his hands. It was that simple and yet very effective. She didn’t turn into a monster or some other crap. She just silently died and he lost her again. I was truly shivering. It was powerful, at least for me, because it shows the real horror - the horror of life. At this point, I thought perhaps that was the director’s intension, meaning to put a horror into another and “more realistic” frame, to tell us that we don’t need monsters and that the life itself is full of horror stories, and our lives and our minds are more frightening than anything else we could possibly imagine. But these are just my thoughts…



Håfström (director) didn’t take any of available ways to present the story and he certainly had many. For example, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Enslin is obsessed with haunted places because of the loss of his daughter. Either he wants to find her or he simply needs to know if there is an afterlife at all. Promising paintings, ghosts, a zombie… So many possibilities! Unexplored! Their role and appearances turned insignificant. We will never get to know their stories. Yes, we can conclude that rooms are full of sufferings, not just Enslin’s but it could be our own, or anyone’s sufferings, and so on. The problem is that I will never know for sure am I just desperately trying to find the point and justify the story and choice of its execution because too many things appear to be meaningless or unnecessary, and detached one from another. The entire movie I had to struggle with it. All my tries have ended up nailed in one way or another. Possibilities will never merge for good, into something meaningful.

So, Enslin survived one hour and the clock is ticking again. However, he is given a chance to go out but he doesn’t want. Not just that he went that far stating that it won’t be on the room’s way, like there ever was a room’s way, but he is determined to burn the room and himself together, apparently unnecessary. 1408 had good base and good turns, but it ended up in a real mess. To sum up, every single possibility and motive is simply unexplored and undeveloped. Whatever the director’s intension, however I turn it, the truth is simple – it wasn’t powerful enough to shake my boxerZ.


13 comments:

Matt said...

Yep, loads of special effects and that’s it. John Cusac was good though.

Milena said...

Yes, Cusack carried the movie almost by himself.

I saw a lot of crappy horror movies lately. Well, 1408 was better than average but I expected more.

DG said...

And Cusack talking to the fridge? LOL

I think we all had high expectations. My opinion is somewhere in the middle… I totally dislike the end.

Milena said...

Yes, the scene with Cusack and fridge is quite memorable :-D

Nikola said...

I dunno. I wasn't impressed by the movie at all. But then, i only watched it one time...

Paul C. said...

Milena~~~

Haven't seen any new posts in a while. Hope everything is OK there. Your readers miss you!

Hannibal said...

Every single one of you missed the point of the movie. First of all the room is evil and immoral. It does not care that it is killing. It likes to take power away from people. Also, you say it was not scary or creepy. In my opinion it was supposed to be different. It was not one of these movies where some idiot runs around (appearently invulnerable) just killing. The whole point of the movie was that the room would not kill him. The room could not kill him. Enslin says "Why dont you just kill me" and the room says
"Because all guests of this hotel enjoy free will, Mr. Enslin." The room cannot kill. It can only make his situation worse and worse until he ends his life. The movie is telling the audience that nothing and no one can take away free will. No matter the situation every man and woman has a choice.

Hannibal said...

Just one last thing. The movie also depends on which version you saw. The theatrical was amazing while the directors cut was terrible. In the theatrical he survives and, while in the presence of his wife, he plays the tape recorder which caught the daughters voice. This both confirmed the reality of the experience and proved in was real to the wife. The directors cut he dies. It was dreadful.

Hannibal said...

Also, you said that it was stupid that the room began the 60 min clock. The room never promised to release him after the time. It just ment that that was the most anyone had lasted in the room.

Milena said...

Thank you very much for commenting Hannibal. You've halped me put some missing pieces together and you surely brought more sense into the story. If you read carefully, I didn't dislike the movie completely, and I said it is better than avarage. My problem was that it was all quite messy, and senseless in the end. But yes, I did watch director's cut, which I failed to mention in my post. I havent's seen theatrical version so I'm not able to compare them or to say anything further without watching it first.

Hannibal said...

If anyone has any questions that they did not understand or are having trouble with just ask me. I check this blog often and can answer any and all questions regarding 1408.

Anonymous said...

What was up with the dead hand that appeared over his shoulder in the trailer but not in the movie itself, if I recall correctly? Thanks!

Hannibal said...

I myself do not recall that part in the trailer. However, many times you will notice that there are scenes in trailers that do not occur in the film. This is for one of two reasons. The first reason may be that test audiences say the film is too long and they cut some of these scenes after the trailers have aired. The other reason is that they do not want the trailer to tell you the whole story so they place some scenes in it so it will look interesting. Once the scenes enthrall you into watching the film the studio hopes you will forget about the scenes not in it and hopefully love what you did see. I hope that answers yor question.