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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In the Director's Cut ending, Enslin's charred corpse appears in the rear-view mirror of Mr. Olin's car just as the latter is listening to the tape recorder. Did the room take on Enslin's appearance and is its influence spreading outside the hotel? Or is it really Enslin's ghost visiting him? Another interpretation to the latter claims that Enslin checked to see his last work; an evidence of the supernatural in 1408.
  • Awesome Music: Gabriel Yared delivers an eerie and emotional score, depending on whether the room is scaring Mike or putting him through the psychological meat grinder. However, special mention must be made to the track that accompanies Mike’s burning of 1408, “Fire!”
  • Broken Base: The general argument about the film is which ending is superior, due to Enslin's fate being different in the director's cut and theatrical cut. Some like the Director's cut due to being a fitting development for Mike and ending 1408's reign and being reunited with Katie while some don't like it due to it's Fridge Horror on whether or not burning 1408 instead unleashed its evil into the world. Others like the theatrical cut due to Enslin surviving, rebuilding his relationship with Lily, and growing as a person, with both realizing his experience in the Room was real after all.
    • A minor argument about the movie to the point of argument is whether or not Enslin escaped 1408, with arguably the Director's cut implying he did finally escape, even if it meant dying in the process. The theatrical cut, while giving signs that Enslin escaped the room in the end, has left some wondering if it isn't just another hallucination of the room.
  • Cult Classic: 1408 is one of the few underrated gems within Stephen King's very few successful horror films based on his stories.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: At one point the room hijacks and imitates Enslin's likeness threw the webcam so it can give false information is very similar to how AI and Deepfakes work and how they can be used for the worse.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Mike Enslin. While he's a bit of a Deadpan Snarker and abandoned Lily, treated his father like garbage and overall acts like an arrogant arse, you do sympathize with his pain of the loss of his daughter and have no faith to go when Katie passed. It doesn't help 1408 constantly pushes his pressure points to break down.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The room is torturing Enslin endlessly throughout his stay, but its crowning achievement is near the end by giving him back his dead daughter before she dies in his arms again, then turning on the radio so she crumbles into dust.
    • It even pushes it further when it goes into taunting Enslin into wanting to also take Lily as well, which is what prompts him to burn the room down.
  • Narm: Mike attacking his mini fridge while making incoherent, animal-like noises, making it come off as a live action reenactment of a Donald Duck temper tantrum.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Samuel L. Jackson makes the most of his short screen time as Mr. Olin, the hotel manager, who begs Mike (in vain) not to go into the room.
  • Nightmare Fuel: We've only just begun...
  • The Woobie: By some extension, Lily. She lost Katie, Mike abandoned her, and in two of the endings, lost him as well.

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