thoughts on 1408

porsche had heard good things about '1408', and likes adaptations of stephen king material, so we bought the dvd semi-recently and have watched it a couple of times.

i'll admit i have a problem in the last couple years, where its hard for me to take 'serious' movies seriously. ive had this problem for a long time really, bone collector was when i really started to notice it. its like, these drama movies are executed in such a goofy manner.

i can take american beauty seriously; i can take donnie darko or eternal sunshine of the spotless mind seriously. its weird to me because donnie darko and eternal sunshine have surreal elements in them that SHOULD make it harder for me to suspend my disbelief while im watching.

even in a lot of comedy movies (say the big lebowski or being john malkovich), i can take their settings seriously; i can believe in the world going on around 'the dude' or even 'the 40 year old virgin'. i can even believe that the soundstages used in the exterior shots for 'eyes wide shut' are actually somewhere in new york, even though they didn't capture the feel right. it works enough for me--i can take that serious movie seriously.

i can't take 1408 seriously; i can't take most 'horror' premises seriously anymore and certainly not most king premises. its all the same old shit, "x is evil/haunted. BoOoOoOoOoOoOoh!!!". it seems like every other stephen king idea, at least, is "what if x was evil".

"there's this house and its evil"
"its about a car that's evil"
"all the cellphones go evil and start turning people into fucking zombies"
"theres this house plant, and its evil"

the 1408 pitch is like

stephen king:"so theres this hotel room, and something unusual is going on with it"

me: "like, its evil?"

stephen king: "yeah, how'd you guess?"

samuel l jackson: " its an evil fucking room." he actually says that in the movie, and that character is dead serious, and man, i can't take it.

i'll give the movie one thing: i like the sound design. everything sounds crisp and punchy, and when that evil hotel slams the windowsill down, or makes the alarm clock go off, it is FUCKING LOUD AND SUDDEN to scare the shit out of you. i don't know if this was in the king story, or added for the movie, but the radio plays karen carpenter when it turns on by itself, "weve only just begun" with this weird flutter sending it out of tune. i have to give someone credit for that. karen carpenter's voice is really genuinely creepy, and creepier when its blasting out of a shitty alarm clock, all wobbly and distorted. so that's a nice touch.

whats not creepy at this point? "theres this X and its evil!". fucking gag me with a spoon.