Hotel California
by Flick Chick Vique
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1408 scares up 3 Red Vines for an old ‘boo school’ effort |
Stephen King is into rock and roll as much as he is writing. Passages from favorite songs often introduce his tomes of terror. 1408 is based on one of King’s short stories and while I haven’t read it, I am sure to my very core that he was inspired by The Eagles’ Hotel California: Such a lovely place.... you can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.
In 1408, John Cusack is a travel writer with a specialty: haunted haunts! From hotels to mansions and stops in between, he chronicles his nights spent in ghostly surroundings. For someone like me, it sounds like a dream job! I have traveled far and wide to stay at haunted places like Oak Alley in Louisiana’s plantation country; the Queen Mary anchored at Long Beach, or the Jerome Grand in my own Arizona backyard. But for me, spending a night at a haunted hotel is a fun adventure. For Cusack it is a boring job. He’s never experienced anything paranormal at the places he’s covered, so of course he’s a cynic. But he keeps his readers entertained with the gruesome facts of dastardly deeds committed at each location.
Then one day, he gets a postcard from the historically lovely Dolphin Hotel. On the back an ominous scribbling warns him not to go into room 1408. Well as you can imagine, the postcard is like a red cape to a bull.
Like the last horror film I saw, Bug, the bulk of this movie is the main actor facing his demons in a hotel room. Samuel L. Jackson plays a small part as The Dolphin’s manager who does his best to dissuade Cusack from staying in the room that is pure evil. Of course cynical Cusack is convinced that this hotel just has the best hype in the world. If he writes a juicy story, reservations will skyrocket, right? Jackson even tries to bribe the scribe with an extremely pricey, rare bottle of booze and the detailed records of every bloody horror that has occurred in room 1408. But Cusack cannot be bought off.
Once inside, it is a slow, unraveling process that brings Cusack to his knees. Without spoiling anything for you, I will say that I saw shades of The Shining through out the film. And like The Shining, you will wonder whether Cusack is going mad or if he really is at the mercy of things that go bump in the night.
This is what I liked most about this movie but it’s also what I liked least. It is an old-fashioned haunted house tale. There is–mercifully–no psycho on the loose, no blood bath, and no constant profanities. But for me, there was no tension, either. There are lots of pop out at you scares, some of which work better than others. I loved the atmosphere and John Cusack was great as the dog-tired cynic, who seemingly loses his grip on reality. Or does he?!
I just wish I had been as scared as he was.
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