Underrated Gems: 1408

 

        Happy Halloween you guys, it’s been one thing where I show you the evolution of the genre. Although, it’s been unfortunate that I didn’t show you more horror films to check out. You may have notice that I jumped through decades and missed out some great ones at various points. Regardless, let’s end this month with a bang with this underrated film from 2007. 1408 was a short story from Stephen King, one of many that I will cover don’t you worry. Anyways, let’s start.

1. The Room

        You know it’s a Stephen King movie, he’ll write about any mundane or ordinary object and manage to make it scary or unique. Like, how can a hotel room be scary, but given that he made a clown scary and a killer car, King has this aspect nailed down. 

        Anyways, so the film is about the author Mike. He’s a writer about the paranormal that stays in haunted hotels. He manages to dispel the myths by saying that the hotel is desperate for customers since he believes that hauntings are a way for motels to bring in new cliental. He’s an established author and manages to get a book signing. To which there are sparse attendees. 

        While sifting through his mail, he receives a postcard of the Dolphin hotel in New York City. Specifically of visiting room 1408. Mike tries to book the room, but the receptionist attempts to have him book a different room in the hotel. 

        What I find interesting is that the hotel has this old look to it. Additionally, as he walks in the lobby, there’s a woman with a baby, albeit with an old fashioned baby carriage. Sam Jackson plays the manager, he’s in the movie in a short time in spite of him getting second billing. He tries and ultimately relents to have Mike get the room.

        Throughout the movie, Mike tries to survive the room. I feel that the whole room is a character. Making Mike go insane and attempting to make him kill himself. It’s an unknown force that has a kill count from people killing themselves from either jumping out the window or drowning. In any bad horror movie, there would be a moment to explain why something is supernatural. Either an ancient burial ground or that the place is haunted. 

        What I like is that we don’t know. For some reason, this specific room is just a malevolent force that attempts to get Mike. What it does so well is that it manages to differentiate how Mike sees the various ghosts. Prior to him going into the room, he sees a coroners report of various deaths. What he sees sometimes is ghosts who look like static. And when he sees them fall to the ground, they dissipate into nothingness. 

        The overall main idea is this motif of facing the unknown. As I said earlier, Mike is a skeptic and thinks that room 1408 is just a publicity stunt. When the weird stuff starts to happen, he thinks he was drugged and the manager is just messing with him. It works well since Mike is scared, and the room does something extreme. Bringing up his past, including his dead daughter.  

2. The Other Story

        In between Mike attempting to survive, the room brings back vivid visions of his past. We learn that he was married and that his daughter Katie died of an ailment. As she lays on the hospital bed, Katie asks her Dad if Heaven exists. He says yes, but he knows that to him it doesn’t. Again, it ties back into the central element of the film, confronting the unknown as the skeptic. The whole sequences involving his family is spaced out to give the audience a breath from the room trying to kill him. 

        Specifically, it gives Mike more character with his background as to why he’s a skeptic. He wanted to save his daughter and is mad at his wife for attempting to lie to her just to make her happy. Not that he’s bad father, but he was attempting to try anything to save his daughter. I think it works since, it would be easy to make a character a skeptic and not base it on anything. 

3. Overall

        This is a severely underrated film, especially since it’s an adaptation of Stephen King’s work. It came out during the glut of Saw movies and terrible horror remakes. And, it came out the same year for another King adaptation The Mist. 1408 is a great psychological horror movie. Showing and challenging us to see what is real and how to confront the past.