1408: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

Cusack plays horror writer Mike Enslin, who specializes in investigating supposedly haunted houses and other sites of supernatural activity, which he has documented previously in books like ''Ten Haunted Graveyards'' and ''Ten Haunted Mansions''. However, these investigations have yet to bear fruit in the form of confirmable sightings, leaving him pessimistic and jaded. Through an anonymous recommendation, Enslin learns about the Dolphin Hotel, in which no one has been able to stay even a single night (or even one hour) in one particular room - the eponymous 1408. According to his research, everyone who tries has committed suicide or died from anything from heart attacks to drowning. The manager, Gerald Olin, tries to warn him away from staying in that room, to no avail; Enslin is unconvinced by his warnings and tales, preferring to see things for himself. After all, [[Tempting Fate|what's the worst that could happen?]]

* [[Adaptation Expansion]]: The original story has him in the room for about seventy minutes before he sets his shirt on fire (according to the text: it seems like it would be more like fifteen or twenty). They somehow managed to turn a short story into a 2 hour long movie.

* [[Adult Fear]]: For Enslin, when Katie was dying of a terminal disease, and not only could he not do anything to prevent it, but as an atheist he couldn't even take refuge in prayer.

* [[Attack of the Killer Whatever]]: In this case, a hotel room.

* [[Balcony Escape]]: Mike tries, and fails as the other windows all disappear from the wall.

* [[Cassette Craze]]: Enslin keeps his notes on a portable tape recorder. In the original short story he states that he found that when camping in graveyards, cassettes were easier to use than paper.

** Mike's habit of {{spoiler|keeping a cigarette handy for emergencies.}}

** At the beginning of the movie, {{spoiler|Enslin receives a bottle of cognac from Olin. This is later used to make the molotov cocktail to destroy the room}}.

** Mike's description of the room on how completely unremarkable it is. By the time the film ends, every aspect he describes will be twisted into a vision of terror.

* [[Cigarette of Anxiety]]: The protagonist has a cigarette stored behind his ear for these types of situations.

* [[Dangerous Windows]]:

** Later, when Enslin tries to escape to the next room over by going out the window, he is unable to reach the expected next window over - and then sees that 1408's are the only two windows within about five miles of otherwise featureless wall. Naturally, the window tries to bite him again on the return trip.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: The Room itself, though this does nothing to absolve it of its [[Complete Monster]] status.

** {{spoiler|Enslin}} in the director's cut.

** {{spoiler|The room itself}} in both cuts.

* [[Driven to Suicide]]: {{spoiler|See [[Fate Worse Than Death]].}}

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending|Earn Your ]][[Bittersweet Ending]]: Boy, did Enslin earn it.

:: This arguably makes the movie even harder to watch. You desperately want ''something'' to hate for everything that's happening to Enslin, but hating a room is like, well, shouting at a minifridge. The good thing about this is that you're relieved that it's just this ''one'' room....

* [[Eldritch Location]]: See [[Eldritch Abomination]] directly above.

* [[Horror Struck]]

* [[Hollywood Atheist]]: Enslin, though he was an atheist ''before'' his daughter passed away.

* [[I Never Said It Was Poison]]: When Enslin calls to reserve a night in 1408, he is told it is unavailable. He then points out that he didn't specify the night he wanted to stay.

* [[Inn Security]]: "Even if you check out, you can never leave..."

* [[It Has Only Just Begun]]: Featuring The Carpenters as the voice of unfathomable evil.

* [[It Won't Turn Off]]: The clock radio, which keeps counting down even after Enslin pulls out the plug.

** In a "blink and you miss it" foreshadowing, when the post office is being torn down to reveal the room, one of the bricks on the wall has "Burn it alive" written on it.

* [[Kubrick Stare]]: Mike at the end

* [[Mind Rape]]: In the movie, it is implied that the room peers into the darkest corners of its current occupant's fears, regrets, and insecurities, and customizes itself to whatever nightmares will traumatize them the most.

* [[Negative Continuity]]: Played straight. Over the course of the hour, many details of the room change, starting subtly with a crooked hanging, but growing increasingly elaborate. Even the varying levels of cognac left in the bottle are likely intentional.

** Enslin believes himself to be this, he doesn't believe in the supernatural, claiming even it was real, there isn't a God to protect them from it. He even wears a hat at one point with the words "Paranoia is just total awareness".

** In comparison, Olin is definitely this. He decided after the 4th death under his watch to have the room sealed and forbade any guests to check into it. He has 1408 serviced once a month, under his direct supervision, with maids working in pairs [[Properly Paranoid|and the door kept open at all times.]] He tells Enslin that he treats the room as if it were filled with toxic gas, and won't even go near it unless he has too.

* [[Parking Problems]]: The protagonist takes up two stalls with his SUV in front of the post office at the beginning of the movie.

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: "It's an ''evil'' fucking room."

** Notably on the ''Heights and falling'' part...

** And the "Spectre of Death" part as well.

* [[Psychological Torment Zone]]

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Enslin receives one {{spoiler|from his minifridge.}}

* [[Room 101|Room 1408]]

* [[Schmuck Bait]]: The postcard Enslin receives, warning him "Don't go in 1408!"

* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: In the book, Enslin becomes totally paranoid after his experience. {{spoiler|He cannot sleep in strange places, he can't answer the phone, he can't allow any light from the sunrise or sunset into his room (as it reminds him of the horrible colors in the room), and he is an all-around broken individual.}}

** There's a small blink-and-you-miss-it ([[Easter Egg|Seriously, the pause button will be required]]) reference to the original short story. When Enslin is walking down the hall to the room for the first time, he is shuffling through his notes. On one page is a line from the original short story from when Enslin first begins to feel the affects from the room.

** After the climax and Enslin's escape, he starts seeing the ghosts of those trapped in 1408, including while having lunch in a restaurant in a frame-for-frame shout out to the ending of [[Misery]]. {{spoiler|Then he finds out he's not escaped after all.}}

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: "We've Only Just Begun", indeed... The room had only ''just'' begun to fuck with him. No matter how long he spent in there, 1408 could always think of something new...

* [[Spit Take]]: In the movie, Enslin learns why you shouldn't drink anything when staying an a hotel room with a sadistic radio...

** To be fair, any reasonable scientist would have noticed SOMETHING odd about the massive number of fatalities.

* [[Take a Third Option]]

* [[That Was Not a Dream]]: {{spoiler|1408 is such a bastard that it lets Mike think he'd been out for a week or more before informing him, nope, you're still here}}.

* [[They Look Just Like Everyone Else]]: Nonhuman version here. Until weird things start happening, 1408 looks like any random (if very nice) hotel room.

** It came out on the 22nd in 2007. 2+2+2+0+0+7=13.

* [[Through the Eyes of Madness]]

* [[Trash the Set]]: {{spoiler|After Mike seems to have escaped from 1408 and lived a week or so of his normal life, he goes to the post office to deliver a letter, and suddenly all the employees start destroying the place, to reveal 1408 beneath it.}}

* [[The Un-Reveal]]: In spades. {{spoiler|We never learn what the room is, who sent the postcard, or whether Enslin really escaped.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Horror Films]]

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:Film]]