History Film / FourteenOhEight

* PetTheDog: Despite the room being a crowning example of evil incarnate, it seems to offer it’s guests (or at least just Mike) a sort of “trial period” from first entering 1408 to when the looping hour of horror begins, where they are free to leave the room if they so wish. A prime example of this is when the engineer arrives to assist in the thermostat repair, the room allows Mike to open the door and it remains open until he closes it after the engineer rushes down the hallway in fear. Mike is also able to walk out of the room into the hallway with no violent resistance from 1408, it is only after he returns inside and closes the door that the violence ensues.

* AdvertisedExtra: Creator/SamuelLJackson's face takes up as much real estate on the poster as Creator/JohnCusack's. The former has maybe ten minutes of screentime, whereas the latter is in every scene (and is often the ''only'' character in the scene).

* ParanoiaFuel: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] InUniverse. Enslin states that hotel rooms are inherently creepy due to the fact you have no idea who else has come and gone from them before you came, and who will come and go after. Any number of those people could have been sick or insane at the time they stayed, and several of them have probably already died.

** [[spoiler:At the end of the director's cut, Enslin's tape recorder recovered from the burnt-out shell of the titular hotel room finds its way to Sam Jackson's character. After listening to it for several seconds in his car, he jumps with fright upon seeing Enslin's charred corpse in his rear-view mirror, giving him a weary grin. Whether this is the room's malign influence spreading or simply Enslin seeing his last work completed remains unclear]].

* FridgeHorror: Invoked and discussed by Mike as he settles into the room and prepared his investigation.

* BalconyEscape: Mike tries, and fails as the other windows all disappear from the wall.

** Another one people seem to miss: According to Olin, there was a total of 56 deaths in 1408, while [[spoiler: Mike would have been the 57th victim, had Lily come up to the room as well, it would have added up to 58. 5 + 8 = 13]].

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: The movie gives zero explanation of the crazy guy with the hammer Mike keeps seeing. A brief shot implies he's one of the men from the painting of the ship at the sea.

* PetTheDog: Despite the room being a crowning example of evil incarnate, it seems to offer it’s guests (or at least just Mike) a sort of “trial period” from first entering 1408 to when the looping hour of horror begins, where they are free to leave the room if they so wish. A prime example of this is when the engineer arrives to assist in the thermostat repair, the room allows Mike to open the door and it remains open until he closes it after the engineer rushes down the hallway in fear. Mike is also able to walk out of the room into the hallway with no violent resistance from 1408.

* PetTheDog: Despite the room being a crowning example of evil incarnate, it seems to offer it’s guests (or at least just Mike) a sort of “trial period” from first entering 1408 to when the looping hour of horror begins, where they are free to leave the room if they so wish. A prime example of this is when the engineer arrives to assist in the thermostat repair, the room allows Mike to open the door and it remains open until he closes it after the engineer rushes down the hallway in fear. Mike is also able to lean himself out of the door into the hallway with no resistance from the room itself.

* TrashTheSet: [[spoiler:After Mike seems to have escaped from 1408 and lived a week or so of his normal life, he goes to the post office to deliver a letter, and suddenly all the employees start destroying the place, to reveal 1408 beneath it.]]

* OccultDetective: Enslin, in combination with IntrepidReporter.

* LaughingMad: In the movie, Enslin gets a massive case of the giggles [[spoiler:as the room burns around him]]. Olin also mentions that the maid who was accidentally locked in 1408's bathroom briefly and [[EyeScream gouged her eyes out]] was laughing hysterically when they pulled her out.

* DrivenToSuicide: A number of 1408's victims went out this way, and it tries like hell to induce this in Enslin through sheer psychological torture. It even offers him a noose. [[SarcasmMode How helpful of it.]] Even for those who don't kill themselves, from the 29 undocumented "natural" deaths, it's implied the unrelenting torment the room puts its victims through eventually causes them to die from sheer stress anyway.

* TooDumbToLive: Enslin counts. Even if he is a skeptic in the supernatural, it should have been disturbingly obvious with the extensive history of mysterious deaths and mutilations that Olin provides him that room 1408, regardless of nature, was dangerous, he still insists on staying the night. Olin even offers him access to all his files on the room's history and suggests that Enslin photograph 1404 with its identical layout, pointing out that his readers wouldn't even know the difference; Enslin refuses because he want it to be "authentic". It ends up costing him dearly. An argument of Enslin acting this way can be argued that he has become so jaded with desperation of hotels playing off ghost stories, to say his ''own'' jadedness with not believing in ghosts and religion, is arguably why he thinks Olin is lying. That being said, considering the amount of evidence against the room, Enslin should have been a lot more wary.

* TooDumbToLive: Enslin counts. Even if he is a skeptic in the supernatural, it should have been disturbingly obvious with the extensive history of mysterious deaths and mutilations that Olin provides him that room 1408, regardless of nature, was dangerous, he still insists on staying the night. It ends up costing him dearly. An argument of Enslin acting this way can be argued that he has become so jaded with desperation of hotels playing off ghost stories, to say his ''own'' jadedness with not believing in ghosts and religion, is arguably why he thinks Olin is lying. That being said, considering the amount of evidence against the room, Enslin should have been a lot more wary.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Shortly after the room starts to play tricks on Enslin, he starts to consider the possibility that he might be dreaming or hallucinating (and wonders if perhaps Olin put a hallucinogenic in the whiskey he gave him). This remains an entirely valid interpretation of the film for most (if not all) of its runtime.

* YearInsideHourOutside: Time is one of the many things that don't function normally in room 1408. [[spoiler:At one point Mike is lulled into thinking it was AllJustADream, and he goes on with his life for about a week on the "outside" before the room reveals that he never left at all.]]