Thursday

In a complete reverse of genre, yesterday I saw 1408. It's an adaptation of a Stephen King story starring John Cusack as a cynical writer who visits haunted places and reviews them. He finds out about room 1408 in a hotel in New York and, despite the manager's protestations, books the room for the night. I'm never sure how to review horror films. If their only aim is to scare you, then they succeed too easily. However, with Stephen King, you expect to be more than scared. You expect a psychological trauma that will stay with you, or a story that questions reality as you know it. As this movie began, I was successfully scared, the tension built brilliantly to the moment he first opens the door and enters the room. But, as with all horror films, as soon as you see something you cease to be horrified. You soon discover that whatever the terrifying thing is, it actually can't do much to the main character. There are certain rules that need to be followed. So, for a lot of this film, I found myself on the verge of laughter as John Cusack ran around an empty hotel room going mental. It was a bit like a Beckett play. It was very hard to sustain the tension with only one actor. I imagined that the original story probably worked a lot better - in a movie you need interaction, whereas in a book you can dwell on the psychology of one man for much longer. The multiple twists at the end were annoying, but perhaps necessary. Someone behind me voiced the thoughts of everyone in the cinema as the credits rolled: 'what does that mean?'. As with other King stories, you're never sure what to think by the end, but I'd say this film doesn't sustain its terror as well as The Shining, or The Secret Window. It was good until he entered the room, but quickly became fruitless. Still, John Cusack was very good at a difficult role, and if you want to be scared this will do the job.