1408 (2007)

A movie based on the work of Stephen King about a writer possibly losing his mind as a haunted hotel causes him no ends of problem, it is almost inevitable that you can't watch or review 1408 without thinking of The Shining. However, it is to the credit of the author, the screenwriters who adapted his tale and director Mikael Hafstrom that 1408 manages to take fairly familiar material and make it feel fresh and interesting.

When I first saw 1408 I wasn't impressed. I'm still not completely won over by it but I have to now admit that it deserves a lot of credit for many of the little touches scattered throughout. The basic premise is simple enough, John Cusack plays a writer who visits haunted locations and writes about them. It's not great literature but it's a job. When he comes across the history of the titular room in The Dolphin Hotel, however, he views it as an essential experience and refuses to be dissuaded by the hotel manager (Samuel L. Jackson). But nobody has lasted more than an hour in room 1408 and there have been 56 deaths. Will there be a 57th?

The most impressive thing about this movie is how it takes the source material and expands upon it without losing the essence of the story or ever feeling padded out. This is down to a mixture of good writing, great performances and every trick in the book being used to keep things visually interesting onscreen.

John Cusack is superb in the central role as a man who starts off cynical and selfish and is pushed over the edge into an abyss of potential insanity and dread. Going through a whole range of emotions, from depression to elation to all-out rage, Cusack acquits himself very well. Samuel L. Jackson is also very good in his small, but crucial, role. Then we have support from Mary McCormack, Tony Shalhoub, Len Cariou, Jasmine Jessica Anthony and a number of other people who all do great work.

Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski deserve credit for their work in adapting the short story into something that holds your attention and builds up an atmosphere of real horror. There may be a few jump scares here and there, and there may not be enough here to please fans of gore and/or more standard scares, but the film develops into something very unsettling and decidedly . . . . . off-kilter as the room does all it can to affect Cusack's character.

Director Hafstrom hasn't done anything else quite as good as this since but that's okay. It's not that his other movies have been terrible, the fact is that 1408 is a rather simple, but also rather great, modern horror.

"Stay scared".

8/10.

http://www.amazon.com/1408-Two-Disc-Collectors-John-Cusack/dp/B000UNYJLS/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1400011153&sr=1-4&keywords=1408

The Onion Movie (2008)

It has Steven Seagal in it so this is the weekly Seagal. Suck it up.

Do you know what The Onion is? It's America's Finest News Source. If you didn't know that then shame on you, shame, shame, shame. Check it out here. I've read articles from The Onion occasionally and found them to be pretty funny. I've even seen people mistake their articles for real news items and that's even funnier. Yes, The Onion is a big, funny, mass of spoofery with some of the easiest targets in sight (patrotism, prejudice, capitalism, the language of news reporting) and an ability to hit them dead on. I try to avoid it, however, because I have plenty already that can suck away all of my time on the internet. Thankfully, I set out to see the movie and found it to be pretty bloody hilarious.

The story is a very slim one. The Onion remains America's Finest News Source but is in danger of being undermined by new additions from the corporation that now owns it (a corporation that is out to market, among other things, an amazing Steven Seagal movie entitled "Cock Puncher"). So, essentially, there are a series of sketches framed by a story strand that sees the fate of The Onion, and main newscaster Norm Archer (Len Cariou), hanging in the balance.

 Written by Todd Hanson and Robert D. Siegel, and directed by Tom Kuntz (I have no idea if that's his real name or not, that's the IMDb listing) and Mike Maguire, The Onion Movie is often in poor taste but stays consistently funny from start to finish. Fans of The Kentucky Fried Movie should love it, fans of comedy should love it and fans of Steven Seagal should at least give it a watch to see how good a sport he is for pretending to star in "Cock Puncher".

The cast all do fine, the punchlines are often very funny and the film never outstays its welcome, coming in at just under 80 minutes. A highly enjoyable comedy that deserves to be seen by more people.

8/10.

http://www.amazon.com/Onion-Movie-Len-Cariou/dp/B0017XOF50