Review of 1408 (2007) by Filipeneto — 19 May 2018

In this film, a skeptic tries to investigate (and demystify) the story of an allegedly haunted hotel room. The character, played by John Cussack, is quite stubborn and is convinced that the hotel has no ghosts.

Less certain of this is the manager, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who does everything to demoralize the investigator, trying to protect his hotel from that ill-famed room, which remains closed and inaccessible.

The two actors work well together and do a good job, especially if we consider that they are more accustomed to working on action films. But the great actor in the movie is the room itself. We never see an entity.

In fact, the film is not clear about the existence of a ghost. We see, instead, a man in crisis, struggling with remorse of varied origin, with weights in consciousness. The isolation of the room confronts the investigator Enslin with all these ghosts which, in fact, may be no more than the ghosts of his own past.

This is the beauty of this film, deeply psychological: sometimes the ghosts of our lives are the ones that can destroy us if we confront them. The film, however, commits the terrible sin of exaggeration, especially from the final third.

It seems that director Mikael Håfström was fascinated by the possibilities of special effects, deciding to deeply distort the room in the strangest ways, trying to fit this into the film and making it a little intractable, taking the focus away from the psychological depth thought out in the script.

Special effects, no matter how well done they may be, have their time and should be served to the public in the right measure.