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1408 (M, 100 minutes) Directed by Mikael Hafstrom ****
1408 (do the addition for the full ghostly effect) is the story of occult writer Mike Enslin (played by John Cusack), author of semi-popular ghost survival guides such as Ten haunted cemeteries and Ten haunted houses.
The surfing-loving Californian spends most of his time visiting businesses or places that are claimed to be haunted.
After doing so for years, he is full of cynicism and refuses to believe any stories of ghosts, ghoulies or long-legged cattle.
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John Cusack shines as 1408’s cynical central protagonist Mike Enslin.
“Ghost seems very convenient for desperate hoteliers when the highway moves away,” he says.
However, as long as he makes money, he does not care to take their hospitality – or to strip the bar.
One place that does pique his interest is New York’s Dolphin Hotel. Although it does not have the locker of the Plaza or the Carlyle, the 95-year-old hotel still boasts 90 percent occupancy.
But what the general public does not know is that it was also the scene of 56 deaths, all in one room.
So when the hotel staff does not allow Mike to book room 1408, regardless of the date, he knows he just needs to find a way there, even if it means traveling back to the Big Apple, a city he has his own. history.
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Samuel L. Jackson plays Gerald Olin in 1408.
Apart from creating an effective little cooler, the greatest achievement of Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom is actually to make more than an hour of one man trapped in a single Kafka-like place hugely enjoyable.
He does this through clever use of both computer-generated and old-school visual effects, intelligent tempo to increase voltage, an atmospheric score and a power station performance from Cusack.
Sure, the story is not exactly original, but the film’s freshness comes from its non-Gothic visual flourishing (melting phones, Polaroid-style flashing gaze on the deceased) and a cynical central protagonist.
“Eight dollars for beer nuts – this room is evil,” he jokes.
Directed in a style that suggests The Evil Dead’s Sam Raimi meets Alfred Hitchcock, Hafstrom has produced one of the most terrifying films of the noughties and a movie to take your music from The Carpenters in a whole new light. appreciate.
1408 is now available to stream on TVNZ OnDemand.