Movie 1408 Explained
Jule Watkinson
In 1999, prolific horror writer Stephen King released a short story called "1408." Focusing on a cynical non-fiction writer named Mike Enslin, the story follows Mike as he travels to the Dolphin Hotel in NYC to research his next book, "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms," by staying in the infamous room 1408. While the hotel manager, Mr. Olin, warns Mike of the room's horrific history, this doesn't dissuade him, and Mike experiences a night of darkness and haunting experiences that change him forever.
One thing that the King adaptation makes completely clear is that room 1408 and everything that goes on inside is not a part of Mike's imagination. It's real. When Mike originally goes to the Dolphin Hotel, he sees room 1408 as a challenge to prove that it's all fake. Documenting his experience on a cassette recorder, Mike begins to see and hear strange things soon after entering the room. He tries to leave the room but is unable to do so, and 1408 takes advantage of his past trauma with his father, wife, and daughter in order to torture him. At one point, 1408 even tricks Mike into thinking he's escaped and moved on with his life, but it's all another way to play with his mind.
"1408" is a surprising film in that it actually has a few different endings. The ending that was originally shot for the film has Mike dying in a fire that destroys room 1408. At Mike's funeral, Olin arrives to see Lily and attempts to give her all of Mike's personal items, including his cassette player. She declines, and he returns to his car. Opening the box of Mike's stuff, Olin listens to the cassette tape and hears Katie's voice, before being horrified at seeing a burnt Mike in his backseat through the rearview mirror. This ending, which is dubbed the director's cut, ends with a look inside of what remains of room 1408, where a ghostly Mike smokes a cigarette and walks off to reunite with his daughter. Audiences apparently thought this ending was too dark, and so the official theatrical release ended with Mike's survival, his reunion with Lily, and the listening of the tape.
As with any adaptation, there are bound to be some changes to the story. With "1408," the source material is a short story, so the film has to expand and fill out Mike's experience in the room at the Dolphin to last a whole movie's length. Probably the biggest change between the story and the film is the addition of Mike's backstory. Mike has a wife, Lily, who he is estranged from after their daughter Katie dies. It's an event that no parent ever wants to experience, and the grief tears apart many couples.
1408 is a 2007 American psychological horror film based on Stephen King's 1999 short story of the same name. It was directed by Mikael Hfstrm, written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and stars John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.
The film follows Mike Enslin, an author who investigates allegedly haunted locales. Enslin receives an ominous warning not to enter the titular room 1408 at a fictional New York City hotel, The Dolphin. Although skeptical of the paranormal, he is soon trapped in the room where he experiences bizarre and frightful events.
Mike Enslin is a cynical and skeptical author of niche books about supernatural events, in which he has no belief. While promoting his latest book in Hermosa Beach, California, he receives an anonymous postcard depicting The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City, bearing the message: "Don't enter 1408." Viewing this as a challenge, Mike travels to The Dolphin and requests room 1408. The hotel manager, Gerald Olin, attempts to discourage him. He explains to Mike that in the last 95 years, no one has lasted more than an hour inside of 1408; the latest count is 56 deaths. Olin repeatedly and impassionately attempts to dissuade and even bribe Mike, but at Mike's insistence and threat of legal action against the hotel, preparations are reluctantly made.
While Mike describes the room's boring appearance and absence of supernatural behavior on his mini-cassette recorder as the "banality of evil", the clock radio suddenly starts playing The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun", and the digital display changes to a countdown starting from 60:00. Mike begins to see ghosts of the room's past victims, along with flashbacks of his deceased daughter Katie and his terminally ill father. Mike makes numerous attempts to leave the room, all in vain. As the temperature in the room starts to rapidly increase, Mike uses his laptop to contact his estranged wife Lily and ask for help. The heat activates the sprinkler system, short-circuiting the laptop, which starts to work again when the temperature drops to subzero. A doppelgnger of Mike appears in a video chat window, urging Lily to come to the hotel room herself and giving Mike a sly wink.
The room starts to shake violently, causing Mike to crash into a picture of a ship in a storm, from which water floods the room. He finds himself reliving a surfing accident from before he entered the room. Recovering in the hospital, he reconciles with Lily and assumes his experience in 1408 was just a nightmare; Lily encourages him to write a book about it. When visiting the post office to send the manuscript to his publisher, he recognizes members of a construction crew as Dolphin Hotel staff, who start destroying the walls, revealing that Mike is still trapped inside 1408. Katie's ghost confronts him, and when the countdown ends, the room restores itself and the clock radio resets to 60:00.
A female voice calling herself "hotel operator" calls Mike. Mike asks why he has not been killed yet and she informs him that guests enjoy free will: he can relive the past hour over and over again, or use their "express checkout system". A hangman's noose appears, but he refuses to give in. Mike improvises a Molotov cocktail and sets the room on fire. He then lies down and laughs in victory upon destroying the room. The hotel is evacuated and Olin, in his office, praises Mike for his actions.
Mike survives and reconciles with Lily, though Lily is skeptical of his experience. She finds a box of Mike's possessions that were rescued from 1408 and Mike takes the damaged mini-cassette recorder from it, saying: "Sometimes you can't get rid of bad memories. You've just got to live with them." Mike briefly tampers with the recorder, making it work again. Suddenly, they both hear Katie's voice coming from it, confirming Mike's account.
The original discarded ending had Mike dying in the fire, but happy to see the room destroyed. He spitefully laughs as the room screams in agony, and everything burns and crashes on top of him. At Mike's funeral, Olin approaches Lily and Mike's publisher Sam Farrell. He unsuccessfully attempts to give her a box of Mike's possessions, including the tape recorder. Olin claims that the room was successfully destroyed and that it will no longer hurt anyone else. He later listens to the recording in his car and becomes upset when he hears Katie's voice on the tape. He sees a little girl in a dress walking on the cemetery grass behind the car, calling out as if she is lost. He then sees Mike's burnt corpse in the backseat. Then he sees the same girl holding hands with her father as they walk away. Olin places the tape recorder back in the box and drives off. The final scene is of the gutted room, where an apparition of Mike assesses the death of the entity while smoking a cigarette. He hears his daughter calling for him and disappears as he walks toward the door. A door is heard closing and the scene fades, indicating that in death, Mike has freed all of the souls.
This ending is the default ending on the Blu-ray release and two-disc collector's edition. Canadian networks Space and The Movie Network, and U.S. network FX broadcast this version of the film. Space broadcast the theatrical ending on July 23, 2012. This ending is also used on the U.K. and Australian DVDs, and the U.S. iTunes and Netflix versions of the film.
Mike dies in the fire. Instead of the funeral scene from the director's cut, the sounds of a funeral are dubbed over shots of Los Angeles. Lily and Sam sort through Mike's effects. Sam returns to his New York office and discovers the manuscript that Mike wrote while he was in room 1408. As Sam reads the story, audio from Mike's experiences in the room is heard. In a final scene, Sam's office doors slam shut and Mike's father's voice says: "As you are, I was. As I am, you will be."
In November 2003 and 2004, Dimension Films optioned the rights to the 1999 short story "1408" by Stephen King. The studio hired Matt Greenberg to adapt the story into a screenplay.[3] In October 2005, Mikael Hfstrm was hired to direct, with the screenplay being rewritten by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.[4] In March 2006, John Cusack was cast to star in the film,[5] joined by Samuel L. Jackson the following April.[6] In July, Kate Walsh was cast to star opposite Cusack as the protagonist's ex-wife,[7] but she was forced to exit in August due to scheduling conflicts with her role on Grey's Anatomy. She was replaced by Mary McCormack.[8]
The DVD was released on October 2, 2007, by Genius Products with a standard 1-Disc Edition (widescreen or fullscreen), and a 2-Disc Collector's Edition that contains both versions of the ending and an unrated edition which restored six minutes of the film.[11]
James Berardinelli awarded the film three out of four, calling it "the best horror film of the year". He offered significant praise for Cusack's performance as Mike Enslin, writing: "This is John Cusack's movie to carry, and he has no problem taking it where it needs to go." He found the film "reminds us what it's like to be scared in a theater rather than overwhelmed by buckets of blood and gore".[16] Some critics called the film far superior to other adaptations of Stephen King novels and stories. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "one of the good Stephen King adaptations, one that maintains its author's sly sense of humor and satiric view of human nature" and "more genuinely scary movie than most horror films".[17]
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