1408.

"There was every reason going in to believe that 1408, based on a Stephen King short story, would be nothing but a Shining rip-off made on the cheap," begins Robert Wilonsky in the Voice. "The screenwriters are collectively responsible for Reign of Fire, Problem Child 3 and Agent Cody Banks; John Cusack has proven he's not above taking a gig for the paycheck; and director Mikael Håfström's sole English-language film was the dreadful Derailed. Yet it's a surprisingly effective movie."

Updated through 6/22.

"[E]ven lightweight King has some pulpy verve to offer, and 1408's mixture of supernatural hullabaloo and spiritual awakening is sturdily propped up by Cusack, whose performance is equal parts caustic cynicism and empathetic turmoil, and whose presence in yet another efficient B movie (after The Ice Harvest) confirms an admirable dedication to genre craftsmanship," writes Nick Schager at Slant.

Mark Olsen has a good talk with King for the Los Angeles Times. King's pro-Hostel: Part II ("it makes you uncomfortable, but good art should make you uncomfortable"), but he has his reservations about Captivity ("an exploitation film about Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, and I don't want to see it"), and of course, he remains teed-off at Kubrick for The Shining. As for 1408, "I thought it was terrifying. It works on that level and it should."

Update: "Fairly typical of Stephen King's short stories, 1408, which playfully concerns itself with the culture of paranormal tourism, has some terrific ideas, an intriguing set of establishing circumstances, and gradually fizzles out when the spooky stuff inevitably takes over," writes Josef Braun in Vue Weekly. "1408 the movie is the same but more, particularly the fizzling out part."

Updates, 6/22: "Originally written as a how-to exercise for his book On Writing, 1408 (add the numbers, folks) stands as one of King's best short stories," writes Andrew Wright in the Stranger. "Rather surprisingly, the inevitable movie adaptation doesn't suck, due to relentless pacing and direction that finds some ingenious methods of visualizing the story's literary whim-whams. Before it finally succumbs to CGI bloat in the last act, it offers up one of the creepiest hours in recent memory, boosted by a central performance by John Cusack at his most endearingly neurotic."

"[M]ore psychological thriller than outright horror," notes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times.

Carina Chocano, writing in the Los Angeles Times, concurs and adds: "Considering that 1408 is essentially a movie about the relationship between a man and a room, the ever more squinty and solid Cusack seems a felicitous casting choice. What evil hotel suite worth its salt could resist trying to rattle that supercilious squint?"

"Whether what's happening is real, a hallucination, or something between ceases to matter at a certain point, because the ever-changing rules follow no particular logic, and the bubble bursts on these illusions just as arbitrarily," writes a disappointed Scott Tobias at the AV Club.

"For its first half, 1408 is genuinely scary, filled with off-kilter framings, images glimpsed only briefly, and continual hints that Mike's ordeals are linked to his former traumas," writes the LA CityBeat's Andy Klein. "But there's a certain point about halfway in when the setting moves from a believable universe to a wholly unrecognizable one and our ability to connect emotionally with what we're seeing is weakened."

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek goes along with it a tad further: "For the first two-thirds, 1408 worked on me, largely because of Cusack's performance: His face is so searchingly earnest that you hate to see the horrors of this nasty little room - and of his own past - wreak havoc on him. But the movie attempts a false ending that doesn't quite work; the picture feels prolonged, dragged out, and its ennui lessens the impact of some of its more terrifying fillips."

"1408 is actually one of the best Stephen King adaptations in quite some time," writes major King fan Scott Weinberg at Cinematical.

"For the most part, it gleefully scalpels your nerves," writes Mike Russell.

"In 1960, 1408 would have been 70 minutes long, (Vincent Price would have played the [Samuel L] Jackson role), which is the right length for a cheeky, spooky movie based on a short story about a demented hotel room," writes Matt Singer for the Reeler. "Today, the thing has to run 95 minutes, and be loaded with lots of added gags and special effects that pad its length but actually diminish its total effect. There are only so many things a killer domicile can do to a man before you just throw up your hands."

Posted by dwhudson at June 21, 2007 12:43 AM