1408 Review
I’ll give the director this: From the moment we begin the second act we are well aware that, despite the author of the source material involved, this is neither the Shining nor the decade it was released (be it the film or the book). If anything this movie’s tragic backdrop reminded me more of The Final Girls if it favored suspense over comedy. That’s not to say it was anything similar to the former Stephen King work. And although the word hurts to bring up because of its aggressively subjective nature, 1408 almost even felt like an antithesis to The Shining. The antagonist is certainly replaced as the protagonist, while there is definitely a crushing opposite to what the Overlook Hotel gave us: claustrophobia. I suppose what ultimately got to me about this movie is that it was probably the first notable movie from its decade to break the mold of what was popular around the 2000s. In a way it even is to The Ring cash-ins to what Total Recall (1990) was to bad movies: it technically has all the features of one without actually qualifying as one. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized how each work represents a different emotion that can drive people into a state of horror that suits each decade better. While 1980’s The Shining represented Mr. Torrence’s anger driving him very much into madness, 2007’s 1408 had Mr. Enslin’s sadness embody what I can only assume was grief (if not depression) manifesting itself in all these crazy ways. With its PG-13 rating I’d dare say it’s even more mature than The Shining to some degree, although I’m just as tempted to call it a spiritual prequel to Dr. Sleep (which would just reignite the former’s horror by adapting with the times if not amping it up along the way). Overall I didn’t think it was appropriate to mention this again at first, but in my review for The Shining itself I described that film as a torch with a normal sized red flame. 1408, given how it accomplishes its goals for a horror film, is essentially a small blue flame.