Review of 1408 (2007) by Patricks. — 07 Nov 2007

I bought this movie because the short story in '14 dark tales' by Stephen King was incredible. It scared the likes out of me and the ending was far from predictable (he sets himself on fire in the short story).

What the filmmakers did to this masterpiece made me hugely dissapointed. But it was absolutely typical, I half-expected it to be this way. Hollywood filmmakers try to make a film oh so dramatic by adding a secondary plot (in the book there was no daughter and wife), they have to of course use incredibly modern technology (no cell phone nor a laptop in the book) and create an ending that, uses stupid special effects where there was such a beautifully creepy one given.

Another typical thing to add here is that they put in bad effects and left out the ones that are the most enthralling in the book. The whole time I was waiting for Cusack to touch the wall and realize it feels like skin.

And when the room froze? What was supposed to be so frightening about that? They completely overkilled the thermostat element. To all those people who watched the movie: Don't let yourselves be fooled by the film: buy the book and see for yourselves how the story itself is far from being mediocre but is one of the best Stephen King stories there are, I'm not kidding.

Cusack was ok, it was just his misfortune to be placed in a film like this. The situations were so unreal that well realistic acting would have been next to impossible. Ending note: Read the book, you'll get more out of it.