John Cusack
saves 1408 from tripping over its grandiose ambitions and turns in an
authentic, stellar performance despite
the fact that he has made much better movies.
John Cusack
fans may remember a time when his roles used to be cool.
Holding a radio
above his head and blasting a Peter Gabriel song to romance the love
of his life in Say Anything... was cool; discovering a portal
that allows him to crawl into John Malkovich's head in Being John
Malkovich was cool; even being the jaded owner of a record store
with an obsession with list-making in High Fidelity
was cool. What is not cool?
Being stuck in an ‘evil' room
in a mediocre adaptation of a Stephen King short story.
In 1408,
Cusack goes against type and plays Mike Enslin, a writer who debunks
paranormal occurrences in haunted hotels. Enslin spends a night in an
allegedly haunted room equipped with the appropriate gadgets to detect
paranormal activity and records his experiences in titles such as
Top Ten Haunted Hotels, but he has never seen a ghost.
His hard
sceptism takes him to room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel where he insists
on spending a night in the room despite the warnings of the hotel manager
(Samuel L. Jackson). Enslin is undeterred by the fact that fifty-six
people have died in the room, nor is he scared off by the grisly collection
of pictures of the victims that the manager shows to him.
But soon, Enslin finds himself trapped in a whirlwind of horrific paranormal events: he goes momentarily deaf all of a sudden; the radio clock unexpectedly
blasts The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun", he sees -
and is chased by - apparitions of the victims of the room, and he
even sees his dead daughter.
Enslin doesn't
believe in ghosts, and it's not clear if the audience should either.
What starts off as a horror movie about a haunted room quickly becomes
an uneven, over-ambitious metaphysical deconstruction of Enslin's
psychological problems.
In room 1408, he's compelled to confront his
inner demons that he has consciously and conscientiously ran from, ever
since his daughter's death.
While 1408 stands out from the
current crop of blood-and-gore horror movies in that it is not a straight-forward
fright fest without any substance, its "deeper meaning" falls flat
in the face of plot inconsistencies, bombastic special effects that
undermine the creepiness of the movie's concept, and an ending that
opens up questions that one thought were already answered.
It is also
the unsatisfactory ending that derails what is, up till then, an unimpressive
but serviceable psycho-analysis of Enslin's character: the line between
hallucination and reality is erased, and so is whatever insight the
audience is able to make into Enslin's psyche.
1408's saving grace is its lead actor. Cusack, reliable as
ever, carries the entire film on his shoulders. One might question his
career move in choosing this role, but his commitment to the role is
unimpeachable.
The audience is terrified not because of ghosts that
chase Enslin through air vents; the audience is terrified because Enslin
is terrified. Cusack completely subverts Enslin's initial atheistic
sceptisism when the room begins to unleash the demons of his past on
him - what started off as just another job becomes the longest, most
terrifying hour of his life.
More importantly, Cusack delivers the cynical
pathos and desperation of a man subcutaneously torn apart by an insufferable
loss with authenticity, and it is his performance that saves 1408
from falling into the category of ‘a pretentious failure' that it
dangerously skirts.
However, 1408
does dish out its share of dark comedy in equal measure. An eerily chirpy
automated voice on the receiving end of the hotel telephone cheerily
informs Enslin that he can either extend his stay in the room or take
its express checkout option.
Seconds later, Enslin finds himself staring
at a noose that appeared out of nowhere. Cusack is also an asset to
the movie in this regard: his sarcastic charm that worked so well in
films such as Being John Malkovich
and High Fidelity lends a laconically humourous touch that lightens
the stuffy, grandiose mood of the movie.
But dark humour
can only do so much in a movie that primarily aims to scare. 1408
unfortunately suffers from an overload of special effects that quickly
becomes more reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean than
The Shining.
Genuinely scary films such as M. Night Shyamalan's
The Sixth Sense and Alejandro Amenábar's The Others dispense
with extraneous and unnecessary CGI and instead, rely on their spooky,
isolated and minimalist atmosphere to deliver the scares, thereby epitomising
the truth in the saying, "Less is more."
That is what is suggested
by a dark, seemingly endless hallway that haunts the audience after
the movie, not roaring CGI ghosts that hide in air vents. Director Mikael
Håfström could learn a thing or two from that. hooked
Hooked's rating: 3/5
Images courtesy of Golden Village Pictures
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