History Literature / FourteenOhEight

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: 1+4+0+8=13. And because of the way floors are numbered in the West, it's actually on the 13th floor.

* NumberOfTheBeast: See EvilPhone's quote above. "Six! ''Six''! This is ''goddamn fucking six''!"

* MindManipulation: Whatever is going on in 1408 is at least partially, if not completely, a mental effect. The easier one's mind is to undermine, the faster 1408 will manifest its full power. Anything that increases a person's morale can stave off the effects of 1408 a little - groups of people fare better than people alone, and good friends fare even better. However, as noted by Olin, [[WeirdnessCensor disbelief]] in the room's power does not help and actually makes things even '''worse'''. Presumably because an unbeliever will not bother with [[PsychicStatic putting up mental defenses]] until it's too late.

* DomainHolder: Outside of his office, Olin is an inconsequential little man who is completely dominated by Mike. '''Inside''' his office, he suddenly acquires a powerful presence and personality, to the point that Mike spends the entirety of the interview on the defensive, and Olin even manages to make him seriously reconsider his decision to enter 1408. Of course, unlike the titular room, Olin's office is completely mundane (at least probably, [[EpilepticTrees one never knows what kind of long-term effects being exposed to an EldritchLocation can have on a man and his surroundings]]), but its effect on Olin's composure is so drastic that it evokes this trope nonetheless. And then of course there's whatever abomination has made Room 1408 into its lair.

* SpookyPainting: The evil room features several framed pieces of drab hotel art (a woman in an evening gown, a boat and a poor-quality still-life). At first, they seem mundane if somewhat [[UncannyValley off-putting]]. They later change to become menacing as the hotel room subjects the main character to more and greater horrors.

* UncannyValley: [[invoked]] Shades of this in the descriptions of the still-life paintings (one of which was originally a plastic plum sitting on a plate, and only becomes a painting after he looks, turns away, and looks back) and the bed covers, innocuous objects that just seem off and give Mike a sense of revulsion and dread.

* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Inverted. Mr. Olin, the hotel manager, begs Mike Enslin not to stay in Room 1408, and says that after reading Mike's books about spending nights in supposedly haunted houses and castles, he gets the impression that Mike has absolutely no belief in the supernatural. Olin thinks that this will make Mike's stay in 1408 that much worse. Unfortunately for Mike, Olin is right.

* ManOnFire: The way that Mike escapes from the eponymous room is by setting his lucky Hawaiian shirt on fire, and he speculates that the entity dwelling in the room had no interest in absorbing a burned man. Mike needs a few skin grafts but only avoids more serious injury because another guest on the same floor happened to be walking back from the ice machine, and he dumped his bucket of ice onto Mike's burning shirt.

One of Creator/StephenKing's better short stories and an unusual variation on the classic haunted hotel room, ''1408'' tells the story of Mike Enslin, a professional supernatural investigator/debunker and horror writer who stumbles on something much worse than a ghost...

The story was included in the ''Literature/EverythingsEventual'' collection, and adapted into a [[Film/FourteenOhEight film of the same name]].

* InItForTheMoney: Enslin started out his career trying to write things that he sincerely believed in like poetry, but it didn't grant him any success compared to his books about supernatural investigations, which he approaches very cynically and with no belief in the possibility that any of it could be real.

* MoneyDearBoy: Enslin started out his career trying to write things that he sincerely believed in like poetry, but it didn't grant him any success compared to his books about supernatural investigations, which he approaches very cynically and with no belief in the possibility that any of it could be real.

* TalkativeLoon: Enslin becomes this while in the room. Listening to his minicorder recordings doesn't help ''anyone'' understand what happened in there -- it's all bursts of disjointed yammering about fuming oranges, Oedipus, and wolves on the turnpike.

* ShaggyDogStory: Mike Enslin's stay in room 1408 becomes completely meaningless at the end. Mike survives after setting himself on fire, turning him into a shellshocked paranoiac. His tapes are full of nothing but incoherent ramblings that just confuse his agent. The room still exists, it will still claim victims, and even Mr. Olin's efforts to prevent anyone else from going inside are likely to end with his eventual death/dismissal as the hotel's manager.

* AlienGeometries: The door to 1408 is first crooked to the left, then it's straight, then to the right, then both. Each time, it changed when Mike looks away. And the room itself also takes on some extremely alien geometries near the end. Mike finds "Moorish" the closest thing he could come up with to pinning a word to it. King's text calls it "a convex, rotting cave full of swoops and mad tilts."

* WeirdnessCensor: Brought up by Olin during his conversation with Enslin. He says that the reason he has never encountered a ghost, despite spending a lot of time in supposedly haunted places, is because he does not believe in them. He also says that this will '''not''' help Mike in 1408, and he is absolutely right.

* UncannyValley: [[invoked]] Shades of this in the descriptions of the the still-life paintings (one of which was originally a plastic plum sitting on a plate, and only becomes a painting after he looks, turns away, and looks back) and the bed covers, innocuous objects that just seem off and give Mike a sense of revulsion and dread.

* BittersweetEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408. Still, the room seems to be at least temporarily incapacitated, and Mike still fared much better than any 1408 guest prior to him.

* EldritchAbomination: The room doesn't have ghosts. Whatever's wrong with it was never human.
-->"At least [ghosts] [[WasOnceAMan were human once]], but that thing...that ''thing''..."

* MortonsFork: "Even if you leave this room, you will never leave this room." In other words, if he stays in the room, the evil presence there will torture him forever until he's crazy; if he leaves the room, the evil presence will stay with him, torturing him forever until he's crazy.

* ShaggyDogStory: Mike Enslin's stay in room 1408 becomes completely meaningless at the end. Mike survives after setting himself on fire, turning him into a shellshocked paranoiac. His tapes are full of nothing but incoherent ramblings that just confuses his agent. The room still exists, it will still claim victims, and even Mr. Olin's efforts to prevent anyone else from going inside are likely to end with his eventual death/dismissal as the hotel's manager.

* DomainHolder: Outside of his office, Olin is an inconsequential little man who is completely dominated by Mike. '''Inside''' his office, he suddenly acquires a powerful presence and personality, to the point that Mike spends the entirety of the interview on the defensive, and Olin even manages to make him seriously reconsider his decision to enter 1408. Of course, unlike the titular room, Olin's office is completely mundane (at least probably, [[EpilepticTrees one never knows what kind of long-term effects being exposed to an EldritchLocation can have on a man and his surroundings]]), but its effect on Olin's composure is so drastic that it evokes this trope nonetheless.

* CreepyPainting: There are several in Room 1408, which of course each change from mundane yet [[UncannyValley off-putting]] to disturbing.

* SoulEating: Implied. The victims of 1408 seem to die of "natural causes" such as heart attacks, their bodies intact, but there are strong implications the room "devours" its victims in '''some''' fashion.
* SpookyPainting: The evil room features several framed pieces of drab hotel art (a woman in an evening gown, a boat and a poor-quality still-life) that suddenly change to become menacing as the hotel room subjects the main character to more and greater horrors.

* ShoutOut: ''Film/TheHaunting1963'' gets two of them: one is a specific reference when Mike is thinking about the paintings changing, and the other is a subtle reference to "Mike's 70-odd (very odd) minute stay " in the room.
* SpookyPainting: The evil room features several framed pieces of drab hotel art (an ocean fishing scene, a fox hunt, a woman and a baby) that suddenly change to become menacing as the hotel room subjects the main character to more and greater horrors.