I’m excited about Stephen King’s 1408. For my money, it was one of his three scariest short stories I’ve ever read (and I’ve read quite a few), and the scariest one from the Everything’s Eventual collection.
The movie is due out June 22nd, and unless the reviews thoroughly pan it, I’ll be there. I’ve looked at the photos on IMDB, and even some of the photos scared me. I like John Cusack pretty well. I like Samuel L. Jackson, too, but totally would not have pictured him as the hotel manager.
So, what do y’all think? Will it suck, or is there hope?
King stories turned into movies are pretty iffy. Some have sucked bigtime (It, Maximum Overdrive), some have been fantastic (Green Mile, Stand by Me, Shawshank Redemption).
Looking at the director/screenwriter credits, I’m not super hopeful. Maybe they’ll pull it off.
In the trailer it looks like they added backstory that includes a dead daughter making him want to find out if ghosts are real, blah blah blah. That kind of annoys me. But I’m keeping my fingers x’d and will probably go see it.
I’m surprised they made this one into a movie. To me, there wasn’t much of a story…Man checks into “haunted” hotel room, against the wishes of the hotel manager, sees some scary stuff, gets rescued just in time. The End.
I would really like to see Everything’s Eventual (the story, not the whole book) made into a movie. That one has some serious potential.
ivylass: That’s what I was thinking. I’m assuming from the short story, and from the commercials I’ve seen, that they’ll fill in some of the time by (spoilers juuuust in case) seriously punching up the surreality of the whole experience - give him all sorts of new and freaky hallucinations and stuff… maybe take him into it more slowly, since the whole use of rapidly sliding narrative to show him going over the edge won’t work as well.
As for the dead daughter… Didn’t he have a dead brother in the story? Not that the brother was indicated as being a major reason for anything, but I seem to remember him having that.
He did. One of the disturbing parts of the story was where he said into his recorder “My brother was killed by wolves on the side of the freeway” (or something like that; I’m going on memory here). Maybe they did the dead daughter instead of dead brother because they felt they needed a female or two in the movie?
I agree. I could also see In The Deathroom as a movie.
Yep, dead brother. And the “killed by wolves” quote is correct. I wondered if it was a little link to The Stand.
I’ve noticed that in many movies they feel compelled to add a dead child/spouse to explain the protagonist’s passion for whatever he or she is pursuing. It always bothers me. Why does there always have to be some gut-wrenching explanation?
I’m with you all the way. I adore this story, but I’m skeptical it can be made into a good movie, since the subjective experience is so key. To read about *him *seeing these things is scary, but I worry that the *audience *seeing these things will be lame, if you know what I mean.
And I hate the dead kid angle. After all, some of the fun of the story comes from him being a jaded hack who is able to turn out his books because he has zero belief in the supernatural, so camping out in “haunted” places is no big deal. If it turns out he’s on a quest to find evidence of life after death, that kind of ruins it for me.
Oh, but I’m so going to see it anyway. I hope they have someone really talented do the phone voice: “This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!” Shiver
The voice on the phone was the most disturbing part of that story, IMO. It kept me awake at night just imagining it. If they nail it in the movie it’ll be totally worth the price of the ticket.
Refresh me on the plot on that one? Is that the one with the dying mother?
I think the one with the toy chimp with the cymbals (you know the one I mean) would be good for a TV movie. Anyone know if TNT is doing Nightmares and Dreamscapes again this summer?
I recall this story was included in the audio collection Blood and Smoke. The telephone voice was pretty much perfect in that version. I am excited about this movie, I think I heard a whisper about it a long while ago but forgot. John Cusack in a Stephen King story - I’m delighted! Did you ever feel like the universe was catering entirely to you?
John Cusack, incredibly gifted as he is, has an uncanny ability to pick incredibly crappy material when it comes to mainstream Hollywood films: America’s Sweethearts, Must Love Dogs, Serendipity, Runaway Jury, Con Air. It seems like he is so on-the-margins, that he has no instinct when it comes to what he thinks a broader audience might like.
No. In The Deathroom is about an American newspaper reporter in Mexico. He’s been helping some Mexicans who are rebelling against the government, and has some valuable information about a coming attack. 98% of the story takes place in a room where he is being questioned.
It’s very much a story about the human psyche, and heroism. I think it could be a very good movie.
The story lends itself wonderfully to an audio reading (and there is one, and I’ve heard it’s wonderful), but I think a movie will be the suck. There’s not enough there to sustain a movie, and adding more ruins it; the whole point it that it happened quickly and was scary as shit. A glimpse into hell.
I think a movie made of Everythings Eventual (the short story) would be wonderful, if done well. There’s enough going on there to easily flesh it out into a movie. But I’m really disappointed they picked 1408 for this. The story is so terrific and scary; they are going to ruin it.