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1408 (John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson)

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Yep, you heard me. I went to see it earlier this afternoon, and I loved it. It's easily the best film based on a work of Stephen King since The Green Mile, and one of my favorite movies of that sort ever. It's also the best John Cusack film and performance since Being John Malkovich and High Fidelity. To take it a step further, it's also one of the best horror flicks I've seen in years. Every now and then we'll get a really good one, but a horror film like this is pretty rare these days. The film does not rely only on cheap GOTCHA scares and tones of gore. No, this one dishes out the feeling of impending doom on the viewer, using plenty of creepy atmosphere and very freaky scenes. It's a total psychological type of horror flick that plays with your mind the whole way through, and it's a great watch.

 

The dolts like Eli Roth could learn a lot by giving this one a watch. I hope we get more horror films like this pretty soon, instead of the already tired "torture-porn" horror trend.

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I saw it last night. Good, but not great ("The Abandoned" is a better supernatural horror flick.) John Cusak really is the master of overacting.

 

I don't know what's more tired at this point: Horror movis that use a lot of torture, or the term "torture porn"

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It was a good flick, IMO. It almost seemed like something that would fit with the Silent Hill world. I wonder if King has ever considered plotting a survival horror videogame storyline... ;)

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Was it close to the story?

 

I mean, was the movie close to the plot of the written story? It doesn't look like it.

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I saw it last night, and I thought it was great. It was well-shot, and didn't go for cheap scares, like I figured it would. Instead, this was a smart psychological movie that had me actually questioning a lot of it as we were leaving, trying to make sense out of story elements. They did it well by never really explaining what exactly was going on, just leaving it with Samuel L Jackson saying, "It's an evil fucking room". Great movie, highly recommended if you haven't been to a great movie in quite some time.

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They did it well by never really explaining what exactly was going on, just leaving it with Samuel L Jackson saying, "It's an evil fucking room".

 

That has to be an exact quote from the movie.

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I saw it last nite. It was quite good, but differed from the story in a few respects.

 

The story started when Enslin entered the Dolphin. None of the stuff that happened before that was in the short story. Also, the endings of the two were different. In the movie, Enslin decides to 'be a hero' and sacrifice himself to destroy the room. In the short story, he just goes crazy and lights himself on fire and busts out of the room where another guest throws ice on him to put the fire out. The short story ends with Enslin completely insane and alone in a house on the beach bablling to himself about the 'evil fucking room'. I read that originally, the film ended in a manner similar to the story, but test audiences thought it was 'too much of a downer', so they changed it to the ending that was in the film.

 

Seriously, the short story is really, really creepy, moreso than the film and I highly recommend it to anyone.

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Samuel L Jackson saying, "It's an evil fucking room".

 

That was so funny. I also loved when

Samuel L. Jackson goes through explaining all of the horrible stuff to Cusack about why he should go in the room. At the end of it Cusack still says that he is going to insist that he is given the room, and Jackson simply goes "DAMNIT TO HELL" out of frustration.

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I saw it last nite. It was quite good, but differed from the story in a few respects.

 

The story started when Enslin entered the Dolphin. None of the stuff that happened before that was in the short story. Also, the endings of the two were different. In the movie, Enslin decides to 'be a hero' and sacrifice himself to destroy the room. In the short story, he just goes crazy and lights himself on fire and busts out of the room where another guest throws ice on him to put the fire out. The short story ends with Enslin completely insane and alone in a house on the beach bablling to himself about the 'evil fucking room'. I read that originally, the film ended in a manner similar to the story, but test audiences thought it was 'too much of a downer', so they changed it to the ending that was in the film.

 

Seriously, the short story is really, really creepy, moreso than the film and I highly recommend it to anyone.

 

that was probably done for the best. i'm as big a fan of downer endings as the next guy, and i would've felt cheated by that ending. this ending felt more "earned" than a typical horror ending, made total sense in the building of cusack's character, and there wasn't the obligation to horrify us just for horrifying us since it wasn't an R rated movie. absolutely nothing wrong with a happy ending to a horror movie, and instead of enticing us into some sequel bullshit, it was a nice little self-contained piece of work.

 

people bitch and bitch about happy endings, but recent horror movies can feel just as forced and artificial when they try to do a "shocking" ending (see 'the hills have eyes', 'the descent'), to the point where there's nothing scary or shocking about it. it's just an empty gesture, and instead of scaring me leaves me thinking "well who gives a shit about what you spent 90 minutes building up if you're gonna leave me with THAT?"

 

so anyway, i enjoyed the hell out of this movie. lots of fun, and pretty genuinely creepy in a way that reminds you of when you were a little kid alone in your room at night.

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"1408" is one of King's better stories thanks to an unsual amount of subtleness on his part but I got a bad feeling from the trailers with the new daughter storyline which looks pretty goofy and cliched. Why can't Enslin just be an arrogant prick that gets what's coming to him? Oh well, I'll still be seeing this if only to see Cusack and Jackson do their thing.

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Haven't seen it, but my roommate, who watches every shitty horror movie that hits theaters and is never scared at anything of them, told me she didn't even see the second half of the movie because she couldn't look at the screen.

 

I've GOT to see this movie

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Saw this yesterday and it literally gave me a very uneasy "what the fuck next" feeling as the film kept progressing, to the point

where you thought it just COULDNT end well, but all things considered, it kind of does, but the actual last scene still fucked you up, as it made apparent, to me at least, that perhaps Enslin was stuck in some sort of form of self-depressed purgatory or something, like the room plays on your deepest and darkest fears/memories in your life and compounds them until you can't take it and you finally off yourself to escape the continuous and progressively intense purgatory effect. But he still got out of it, at least.

 

Definate unique directorial style, giving off the most clostrophobic effect I've seen in a film in a very long time (fuck Descent....this film was much better in that aspect than that one).....definately highly suggested to check out.

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Guest A.BUTCHER'S HOUSE OF RIBS

I would've liked this film much more if they hadn't gived away every fucking scare in the fucking trailer. Whatever happened to the classic "teaser trailer"? They really shouldn't have shown anything except Jackson warning him and fade to black when Cusack enters the room.

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(fuck Descent....this film was much better in that aspect than that one)

Them's fightin' words.

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Dont get me wrong, I like Descent just fine, I just meant 1408 got the "clostrophobic feeling" down much better than Descent IMO. They are both overall two very good films.

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I saw this last week. It was pretty good, but I went to a theater full of idiots who kept laughing.

 

I almost rioted when

he woke up in SF and it showed him in the hospital after the surfing accident. I was so fuckin pissed, but then the guys in the mail office started breakin shit. Then they showed that he was back in the room. I was happy as hell that they weren't gonna end a pretty good movie with that shit.

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great psych horror film, and honestly I should nottttt have seen this movie when I did yesterday, particularly because

the scene where he sees nooses in the different parts of the room really made me feel uncomfortable after the whole Chris Benoit ordeal.

 

But despite that, it was disturbing and AWESOME. People should see it.

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Really good horror flick- I admit that it scared the hell out of me quite a bit.

 

My friends were pissed that Samuel L. Jackson saying "I TOLD YOU NOT TO STAY IN 1408" was cut

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I loved the movie. I'd never read the story, but I loved this flick. Not as scary as everyone's been saying - but I think I'm a little desensitized to that kind of thing after seeing the Shining so many times over the years. Definitely a keeper though. This will be making it's way to my DVD shelf one day. :)

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Everyone has already said what was good (and it was a good movie - the dialogue near the beginning with Sam Jackson was as fantastic as described) so here are my minor beefs:

 

- Didn't provide enough cheap scares for the girls we went with to grab my arms

- Like bob said, we were all waiting for SLJ to say "I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO INTO 1408" and it never came.

- The trailer basically ruined

the potential awesomeness of the mind trick the fake ending could have played

.

 

Obviously that's all very minor and when you consider point 1 isn't even a real complaint (well, it is... but you know), point 2 is about as minor as you can get, and trailer cut isn't the film's fault, it's all good.

 

Also, I don't know how much TV spots give away but going to 1 (or 2) movies every Tuesday tends to give you trailer overload.

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I agree with the good but not great verdict. Fun movie, some good tense scares, I liked the ending, but I dunno, didn't completely do it for me. I am glad I saw it though

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Well, I, for one, think John Cusack is a terrible actor.

 

*sigh* I don't even need to say anything here. Everything to the left of that post says it for me. Honestly though, aside from the cheesy facials when

the room was spinning (Downhome!) as he realized he had not escaped

Cusack was excellent.

 

I absolutely loved this movie. I had intended to read the short story beforehand, but never got a chance to do so. I didn't buy the

fake ending since at that point, the daughter had not been shown in the room itself

but it was a great experience nonetheless. The movie seemed to last a lot longer than an hour and a half, but in the best possible way.

 

I loved the movie. I'd never read the story, but I loved this flick. Not as scary as everyone's been saying - but I think I'm a little desensitized to that kind of thing after seeing the Shining so many times over the years. Definitely a keeper though. This will be making it's way to my DVD shelf one day. :)

 

Really? I own The Shining on DVD, and while it scared me when I was younger, I find it to be pretty boring and uneventful these days. The book was excellent and frightening, but the movie does not hold up for me.

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