ideally, the movie 1408 should've worked. it had all the elements - at least from the trailer - of a great movie: john cusack, lifted from stephen king (one of my favorite authors), and enough scaries but without the "ring-like" crawling character (which, IMHO, has pervaded all horror movies since she first came out. case in point: OUIJA, which i absolutely hated.) i was so enthralled with the trailer that i actually "forced" a friend to watch it with me.

THE MOVIE WAS A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. the premise was simple: room 1408 (1+4+0+8=13 ergo scary) is not really haunted (so says the hotel manager) but evil. john cusack's character is not afraid of ghosts, creepy crawlies, or anything of that sort but writes about these things and (at least from what i gathered) pretends that these things exist so as to scare his readers. he then books the room, has a tiff with the manager who does not want him to check-in said room, and eventually gets the room. fifteen minutes later (real and movie time), he calls the front desk and wants to check out simply because (a) he got spooked by the turn-down service of the ghost and (b) he hurt his hand when the window slammed down on it.

ok. that alone was weird. a guy who insisted that he got rid of all his fears at the age of twelve (as narrated to the hotel manager during their tiff) gets spooked out fifteen minutes after getting inside the room?

anyway, it's still showing though, at least here at robinson's place manila it is. if, like me, you will insist on seeing the movie even after people have given it awful reviews, then go see it for yourself. after all, we humans are real suckers for pain.