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1408
Rated R for thematic material including disturbing sequences of violence and terror, frightening images and language;
Michael Machosky can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7901.
It's sure not special effects -- the scares here mostly depend on creepy music, sudden loud noises and a claustrophobic setting. It's not the plot, which comes from a Stephen King short story that mostly recycles shards of "The Shining."
So it must be John Cusack, who plays Mike Enslin, a frustrated novelist who writes sarcastic, cynical travel guides to haunted houses. He ends up locked inside Room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, and, apparently, locked inside his own head.
For at least half the movie, it's only Cusack on screen. In many ways, Cusack is still that teenage loner from "Better Off Dead," who's really a closet romantic, but acts prematurely jaded as a defense mechanism against the indignities of modern life -- and the fickleness of girls. His Enslin is middle-aged now, with a failed marriage, but still sporting shades and lots of black.
"1408" remixes the old haunted house standards -- bleeding walls, apparitions in the mirrors -- with authentically scary things like fear of getting old, fear of becoming your father, and the unholy evil of '70s AM soft-rock radio.
"1408" wasn't made for the gorehounds that keep us swimming in "Saw" sequels. But it is a slick psychological thriller about a lonely man stuck in an old hotel room, with only the ghosts of the past, his own memories, and one really obnoxious clock radio for company.
