1408: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

* [[Billing Displacement]]: [[Samuel L. Jackson]] is in the movie for a total of about fifteen minutes, yet he gets the same billing (and same amount of space on the DVD cover) as [[John Cusack]].

* [[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}}.

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

{{quote|'''Front Desk Clerk{{spoiler|!The Room}}''': [[Fate Worse Than Death|You can choose to repeat this hour over and over again,]] [[Driven to Suicide|or you can take advantage of our express checkout system.]]}}

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

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

* [[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.

{{quote|"My brother was actually eaten by wolves one winter on the Connecticut Turnpike."}}

** "We've Only Just Begun", the song that becomes Enslin's [[Madness Mantra]] by proxy, is also played in the insane asylum where John Trent winds up after the events of ''[[In the Mouth of Madness]]'' ([[How We Got Here|but at the beginning of the actual movie]]).

** 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...

* [[Take a Third Option]]

* [[Taking You with Me]]: {{spoiler|When Enslin finally snaps, he makes a Molotov cocktail with the cognac given to him by the manager to burn himself and the room. He even says, "If I have to go down, I'm taking you with me.}}

* [[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.

* [[Through the Eyes of Madness]]

* [[Title by Number]]

* [[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.}}

* [[Up to Eleven]]: Near the end of the film, you think the room has done its worst to Enslin--tricking him into thinking that {{spoiler|he had actually been out of the room for ''weeks'' before bringing him right back}}. Then it does [[Died in Your Arms Tonight|that thing with Katie]], and you can't possibly imagine it doing ''anything'' more horrible than that, as Enslin looks like [[Despair Event Horizon|a textbook example of a broken man.]] Then it {{spoiler|rewinds to the beginning and tells him he can relive the experience over and over and over...}}

: {{spoiler|And then the theatrical release has his wife overhearing their daughter's voice on the tape at the end of the movie, begging to be allowed to stay with her parents, before the room reclaims her.}} Remember this was the ending the studio forced so it wouldn't be such a [[Downer Ending]].

** {{spoiler|Enslin is waiting for the clock to count down to zero, thinking then that he'll be safe. [[Complete Monster|Then the clock starts up again at 60 minutes]]}}.

** And {{spoiler|letting him "escape"}}. And {{spoiler|showing him his daughter, then ripping her away again.}}

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:Film]]

[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]