Stephen King: Ranking His Films From Worst To Best
14. 1408
It's a brilliant performance on the part of John Cusack that practically carries this entire film, a one-hander that deploys Samuel L Jackson well to set up the story, before letting Cusack get on with it. Based on a short story, Swedish director Mikael Håfström uses every trick in the box for a fun little ghost story. Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a horror author whose job involves staying in supposedly haunted locales and writing stories based on them. He's become somewhat cynical and disenchanted, with each haunted house revealed as a hoax, and is increasingly unhappy with his lot in life after his daughter's death. Then he gets an anonymous tip to visit a particular New York hotel room and, despite Jackson's protestations, spends a night there which turns his world upside down. Some genuinely good CGI, jump scares and Cusack's performance make for a fun one-watch ghost story.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
