“It’s an evil f-ing room.” Samuel Jackson lays the plot out plain and simple, almost as a warning to anyone seeking real chills or anything deeper. John Cusack (perfectly channeling Bill Murray for the first half of the film) plays a cynical writer of spooky tourist guides. He receives an anonymous postcard telling him not to enter room 1408 of New York’s Dolphin Hotel. He books the room right away, in spite of resistance from the manager (Jackson). Almost immediately his stay turns into a demo reel of haunted house clichés: apparitions pop up in mirrors, walls crack and bleed, electronic devices develop minds of their own, Carpenters songs play ad infinitum. The surprises come so quick they nearly trip over each other in a race to fill the screen with as many effects as possible. Plenty of plot points are hinted at – the hotel’s history of unbalanced guests, the journalist’s senile father forgotten in a nursing home, regret over his daughter’s death – but a coherent story is bumped aside by the parade of half-hearted horrors. None of the spectacular set-ups are carried through, so the supposed dangers quickly become tiresome. Plot holes abound: Who sent the postcard and why? What is Jackson’s connection to the hellish hotel? What is Cusack trying to get out of debunking ghost stories? I’ll never understand Stephen King’s strong dislike for Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, which takes its time building true dread. 1408 is typical of flashier King-penned films which try so hard to impress that they become immediately forgettable.

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