Stephen King has already made the most famous scary hotel story, so to even approach the concept again, he'd have to do something different with it. And oh boy, does he.
Writer Mike Enslin lives a lonely existence making airport-grade haunted travel guides, and has few fans...and those who are fans liked his older, personal novels. One day, Enslin gets a note telling him about 1408, a room at the Dolphin Hotel that nobody has ever survived a night in. Steadfast manager Olin warns Mike that it isn't any familiar phenomenon you could chalk up to ghosts—it's just an "evil fucking room". And that's just what we get.
As Mike, having bullied his way into staying, discovers, the room is perhaps atmospherically lacking, but normal. And still, the yellow coloring and decor all serve to make the space uncomfortable. Soon, impossible events start to occur, jolting Mike, and he realizes Olin was absolutely right.
1408 isn't haunted, per se, no matter how typical of hauntings things start out. 1408 isn't really a room. It's a pocket of its own reality, such that anything experienced or perceived past the threshold is subject to doubt. The outside may not even be "outside" anymore, and the space warps over time. The room also seems to have a cartoonish spitefulness in its precise torture of Mike, demonstrating its sentience in such pinpoint cruelty that it's nearly ridiculous. But the surrealist oppression where its boundaries and the nature of what outside factors are real or not keeps it scary. 1408 is like the narrative side of the SCP media catalogue, detailing an anomaly from a personal lens. The film is always creepy and keeps you on edge, and a few revelations about how encompassing and deceptive the room is are chilling in execution.
The story progresses as an allusion to Dante's Hell while also unpeeling the past of Mike Enslin through conjurations of the room as psychological torture. Mike's stay in 1408 is a journey of conquering his demons to defeat the room itself, as if the room is a Hell he needs to prove himself unworthy of. He even learns about the room after nearly drowning, setting up an afterlife parallel early, though I don't think this is to say Mike ever actually dies—just that his living experiences in this horrific space are a metaphorical death and damnation.
This film is mostly a standout to me for the concept of 1408 itself and its strong exection, but that's a big standout and the rest of the film is good, too. King managed to do two great scary hotels that feel nothing alike.
Possibly my favorite Stephen King horror concept.
Stephen King has already made the most famous scary hotel story, so to even approach the concept again, he'd have to do something different with it. And oh boy, does he.
Writer Mike Enslin lives a lonely existence making airport-grade haunted travel guides, and has few fans...and those who are fans liked his older, personal novels. One day, Enslin gets a note telling him about 1408, a room at the Dolphin Hotel that nobody has ever survived a night in. Steadfast manager Olin warns Mike that it isn't any familiar phenomenon you could chalk up to ghosts—it's just an "evil fucking room". And that's just what we get.
As Mike, having bullied his way into staying, discovers, the room is perhaps atmospherically lacking, but normal. And still, the yellow coloring and decor all serve to make the space uncomfortable. Soon, impossible events start to occur, jolting Mike, and he realizes Olin was absolutely right.
1408 isn't haunted, per se, no matter how typical of hauntings things start out. 1408 isn't really a room. It's a pocket of its own reality, such that anything experienced or perceived past the threshold is subject to doubt. The outside may not even be "outside" anymore, and the space warps over time. The room also seems to have a cartoonish spitefulness in its precise torture of Mike, demonstrating its sentience in such pinpoint cruelty that it's nearly ridiculous. But the surrealist oppression where its boundaries and the nature of what outside factors are real or not keeps it scary. 1408 is like the narrative side of the SCP media catalogue, detailing an anomaly from a personal lens. The film is always creepy and keeps you on edge, and a few revelations about how encompassing and deceptive the room is are chilling in execution.
The story progresses as an allusion to Dante's Hell while also unpeeling the past of Mike Enslin through conjurations of the room as psychological torture. Mike's stay in 1408 is a journey of conquering his demons to defeat the room itself, as if the room is a Hell he needs to prove himself unworthy of. He even learns about the room after nearly drowning, setting up an afterlife parallel early, though I don't think this is to say Mike ever actually dies—just that his living experiences in this horrific space are a metaphorical death and damnation.
This film is mostly a standout to me for the concept of 1408 itself and its strong exection, but that's a big standout and the rest of the film is good, too. King managed to do two great scary hotels that feel nothing alike.