1408 (Full Screen)

 

 

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Je pourrais arrêter là tellement je trouve que mon entrée résume bien ce film, c'est légèrement long avant que long tombe dans le vif du sujet mais cela est utile je crois pour que nous puissions bien cerner le personnage... une fois cela fait (compter une bonne dizaine de minutes) l'histoire commence vraiment... on entre dans un monde ou le danger est présent mais est-ce nous qui le créons, est-ce notre imagination ou est-ce bel et bien la réalité... (les frissons me parcours le corps en ce moment...) j'avoue que cela fait un bail qu'un film ne m'a pas aussi bien tenu en haleine !

La force de ce film c'est que l'on voie ce qu'il voie et ce qu'il ne voie pas disons... l'on voie le visible de l'imaginaire... mais je dirais plus que l'on voie ce que l'on doit voir de ce que l'on ne devrait jamais voir... vous savez le côté sombre de la vie... celui qui nous entoure, qui fait que l'énergie circule d'un corps à un autre... ce genre de chose que l'on ne devrait pas regarder car cela est dangereux... (explication ésotérique)

Bref c'est le genre de film qui me fascine même si après j'en suis bon pour être retourné durant quelques heures... mais n'est-ce pas la le but ultime de ce genre de film ? Ensuite à savoir si ce genre de phénomène existe ou pas, je vous laisse seul juge... mais n'oubliez pas que dans la vie ce n'est pas parce que l'on a jamais vue quelque chose qu'il n'existe pas... (Moi je n'ai jamais vue un billet de 1000$ et pourtant je sais que cela existe...)

1408(released in June/07) stars John Cusack & Samuel Jackson in this film based on a Stephen King short story released in /99.The film works well until shortly after we enter room 1408,then it starts to regress into a cliche ridden,been there done that,spook story.
Author Mike Enslin(Cusack)is a moderately successful writer who has written a few books on ghosts and apparitions.He visits hotels,motels and houses that are supposedly haunted,well equipped with the latest in technology so he can document everything he experiences.However Mike is so far a skeptic,as he has never experienced anything approaching the paranormal in his travels.He returns to his home in California and goes surfing,only to experience a rather violent wave wash-over while trying to read a banner being pulled by a plane.Returning home he is sorting through his mail when a postcard with the Dolphin Hotel in NYC,catches his eye.The writing on the back says NOT to visit room 1408 there.Intrigued he phones and tries to book it but has no success.He phones his publisher who in turn brings in a lawyer and between the three of them,they manage to get the room booked.
He arrives at the Dolphin a few days later and is greeted by the hotel manager Mr.Olin(Jackson),who begs him not to stay in the room because it is evil.Mike will not be talked out of it and the manager personally escorts him up the elevator to the floor,but will not see him down the hall to the room itself.Mike enters the room to find a rather well appointed older style decor.Always with his personal tape recorder in hand,he talks his notes out,describing the surroundings as mundane and frustratingly waiting to put in another fruitless night.Slowly but surely things start to happen in increments,like chocolates appearing on his pillow,the toilet paper end arranged neatly and a painting going crooked.Suddenly the clock radio comes to life blaring out the Carpenters "We've only just Begun".When the room temperature rises to unbearable degrees,he calls a maintenance man who comes but won't step inside the door.After he hurriedly leaves and the door is shut the radio comes on again;he pulls it out but the time revs forward and stops at 60 minutes,only to start clocking slowly backwards.The game is on baby.
Numerous specters of guests past,walk through the room,he tries to leave by walking out on the ledge to the next room but the next room disappears into never ending brick,he sees and talks to his dead daughter and father.We slowly find out that Mike carries alot of emotional baggage with the disintegration of his marriage because of his daughters death with cancer.Mike then desperately uses his laptop to contact his wife for help.This is cut short when the sprinklers go off.He tries to get out through the vent shafts above only to be chased back by an undead figure.A painting of a ship foundering in a storm comes to life and it floods the room with water.He goes under and resurfaces only to find himself back on that same beach in California that he was at when he was washed-over previously.He now can read the plane banner and the phone number on it ends with 1408.He ends up in the hospital with his wife by his side as he tries to make sense of what happened.She tells him to write about his experience,and when he does and is finished, he goes to the local post office to mail the transcript.However the employee who serves him tells him that he can't because they're closed.He recognizes him from the Dolphin Hotel and as he looks around at the construction crew,they are also from the hotel.They start into ripping the walls down to reveal room 1408 of the hotel.He has never left but re-enters it.The room now is blackened out from a fire.
His daughter appears and there is a tearful reunion with her but she suddenly crumbles to dust as the clock radio comes back on and the room returns to normal.Mike grabs a cognac bottle given to him by Olin and makes a Molotov Cocktail out of it and sets the room on fire.The room erupts in screams as the flames engulf the entire room.Firefighters rescue Mike and he is taken to the hospital.Mike has escaped,but barely.As he sits at his desk at home listening to his burnt tape recorder with his wife,the voice of his deceased daughter comes on and both stare at each other in disbelief.Fade to black.
The film builds wonderfully up until the moment the radio blasts out the Carpenter song.From there on in the movie becomes filled with cliches with the walking specters,the hot and cold room,the room filling with water,his disorientation,the taps scalding him,the walls issuing forth blood and so on and so on.The writers here went to great lengths to scare us but in the end,they just end up psyching themselves out by overcompensating with the special effects and muddying the haunted waters,by combining the occult with Mike's closet skeletons.Both main stars do wonderful jobs in their respective roles,with the film eventually turning into a one man show for Cusack;and he certainly was up for the task.It is just too bad the script wasn't.
Technically speaking the film is clear and crisp in its original a/r of 2:40:1.Extras include shorts on Inside room 1408,an interview with various stars on the film and the trailer.
All in all a decent film of yet another Stephen King story,but expanded to lengths not necessary in order to scare.The film is strong up until shortly after he arrives in room 1408,then it goes downhill in plot and scare factor.It becomes a little too cliched and obvious with the main characters foibles thrown into the mix.But Cusack and Jackson are strong actors and they compensate for the films flaws as best as they can under the circumstances.

1408's theatrical cut is just below mediocre but the director's cut is a solid four stars out of five and one of the most effective horror films in the last five to ten years. So I went with three stars to balance things. It is amazing that such little changes can have such a dramatic effect on one viewer's perception. It's a shame that the Weinstein's decided to flub 1408 and give it a sappy and cliché Hollywood ending rather than the dark and gutsy horror ending that Mikael Håfström decided to create. This is the version that you folks in Europe and South American got to see in the theaters. The director's cut certainly seems to be the real cut, as 1408 seems to move along at its own pace within that version. It is simply a film about a man who checks into a hotel and we enjoy the suspense build up as the film's main protagonist soldiers forth. Håfström clearly knows what he's doing and he is influenced by a bevy of horror's most keenly detailed films, and that is why it is such a shame that his punches are pulled by Dimension Films for the US audience. His razors are dulled, his poison is given an antidote, and his biggest attack of all is completely de-clawed. Shame on the Weinsteins and shame on the US audience that always has a hankering for these sappy moments of comforting resolve. Other than that I have no strong feelings on the matter.

The Weinsteins did do one good thing and that is to suggest the casting of the Dolphin Hotel's manager, Mr. Gerald Olin. He probably should've been played by some little old white guy with a fancy accent, but instead we get the absolutely iconic Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson is surely one of my favorite actors and it is simply because I enjoy watching him in anything he is in, and 1408 is no exception. Jackson is like Jack Nicholson, he can play anything but it seems that creeping perpetually underneath every character he plays is a little bit of Sam winking at the audience as if to say "it's me again". Olin is the formulaic old man who warns the kids not to go into that house or stay at that camp, and no one listens. The problem is Jackson, as an icon, is traditionally such a great intimadator, but here he is the intimidated and yet he carries the same confidence in 1408 that he carries anywhere else. He warns ghost skeptic and author Mike Enslin, played by the equally enjoyable John Cusack (if you don't believe me I recommend seeing Grace is Gone) that his quest to find physical or visual validation of the supernatural will end in room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, but it will very likely mean the end of Enslin's life as well. 1408 is an extremely evil room. It would have to be if not even Jackson will go inside.

The screenplay is great and it is based on a Stephen King short story I'm only familiar with by name. The music in this film is outstanding and works the suspense triggers with the pace perfectly. Enslin is a loner, who the audience will either like or dislike, but his character is very strong and Cusack plays him as if the audience could take him or leave him as a viable hero. The scenes with Cusack and Jackson together are very enjoyable to watch as the two are such dramatically different actors and their characters are so fundamentally strong and so fundamentally in opposition of each other within the context of this story. These scenes work to further heighten your curiosity. What the hell is going on inside room 1408 anyway!? Don't you worry, the Weinsteins will protect you.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Quality Horror Film Hacked Up by US Distributor
1408's theatrical cut is just below mediocre but the director's cut is a solid four stars out of five and one of the most effective horror films in the last five to ten years. Read more

Published on April 4 2008 by K. Driscoll

5.0 out of 5 stars bon film d'horeur
John kusack,joue très bien son role.Suspense et
surprise. a Voir!

Published on Jan 27 2008 by Carl Martin

3.0 out of 5 stars Genuinely scary
1408 is about a non-fictional (or fictional, depending on one's point of view) horror writer played by John Cusak who travels America in search of the spookiest places so he can... Read more

Published on Nov 11 2007 by Matthew King

4.0 out of 5 stars i think i've seen this movie before (3.5/5)
i liked this movie mildly.it is really bizarre,which is not
surprising.it does come from the imagination of Stephen King. Read more

Published on Oct 18 2007 by falcon

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