Director: Mikael Haefstrom
This was my first time seeing this one, which I gave a shot since I was in the mood for a horror flick and had kept seeing it pop up on various lists of "underrated" or "quality Stephen King adaptations." I found it to be compelling and fairly well done, if not as consistently novel or eerie as the creators might have been aiming for.
The story follows Mike Enslin (John Cusack), a cynical writer of travel guides to haunted hotels and motels around the United States. Though he does it for a modest living, Mike has no belief in the existence of ghosts or the supernatural. After receiving a mysterious postcard, Mike checks into a supposedly haunted room at the Dolphin Hotel in Manhattan, specifically room 1408. Despite highly stern warnings from the hotel manager, Enslin goes into the room, where before long reality is gradually turned on its side and Enslin is assaulted by all manner of physical and psychological torture. The room seems to have some sort of evil purpose of its own, hurling Enslin through all sort of trials, never really allowing him to escape, although suggesting that it could all end if he commits suicide. After it becomes clear to the worn down Enslin that no escape is truly possible, he decides to in fact commit suicide; however, he decides to do it by burning himself and the room along with him, so as to prevent the diabolical place from entrapping anyone else in the future. This act of altruism seems to absolve Enslin, and he is pulled from the burning room in time to save his life.
1408 is essentially a redemption story, and a decent one at that. John Cusack does well playing the painfully cynical Mike Enslin, and the narration adequately reveals just how and why the jaded writer became so disaffected. The movie also does a great job building up the mystery around room 1408, thanks in no small part to Samuel L. Jackson's relatively minor turn as the Dolphin Hotel's manager. By the time Enslin is putting the key into the room door, I was itching to see just what might happen.
Of course, the real show is all about what does happen in the room. For the first fifteen minutes or so, I was riveted. In slow, eerie steps, things begin to go awry in pretty effective ways. As the torments grow more intense, though, I found that they started to become a bit more predictable and even slightly redundant. Early on, it is easy to assume that this is a "no escape" scenario for Enslin, so that all of his several attempts to flee the room have completely foreseeable outcomes. And while there are certainly some truly creepy moments to go with a handful of well-crafted jump scares, I found that the first half of the movie was more engaging than the second.
For me, horror movies do not often have a high rewatchability factor, and 1408 is no exception. It was enjoyable to finally see it, but I don't feel any need to ever go back to it.
Director: Byron Haskin
It's easy to see why this movie was a major hit in its day, and even why it became a science-fiction classic rather quickly. These days, though, it doesn't hold up terribly well.
H.G. Wells's original novel has understandably been adapted many times since its publication back in the late 19th century. The tale is one that captures the imagination well enough: beings from the planet Mars send an array of invasion ships to Earth and begin to systematically wipe out all of humanity. Because of their highly advanced technology, no form of weaponry devised by man can so much as damage the eerily silent flying crafts as they devastate human cities and populations with unstoppable heat rays.
This story brought a rather novel approach to the basic human fear of forces so powerful that we are helpless against them. This, combined with the enigma surrounding the actual nature of the Martians are what made Wells's novel so curious, and it is a part of any successful adaptation of the story. The problem with this 1953 film adaptation, however, is the exact same one that can found in the original story, as well as most other adaptations, such as Steven Speilberg's version in 2005 (which did reenact several of the exact same sequences as the 1953 version). The problem is the utterly anti-climactic resolution to the tale. Just as humanity is down to its last few days before annihilation, the alien invaders all simply drop dead due to infection from earthen bacteria. It's the reverse story of what laid low certain indigenous populations during incursions by invaders and conquistadors at various periods in human history. While this is a fairly interesting plot twist from a science perspective, the execution is thoroughly dull and smacks of the lame Deus ex machina cop out that became a tiresome trait way back when the Greek dramatists began to overuse it over two millenia ago.
Aside from that, the 1953 version does have its merit, as long as one keeps in mind the time when it was released. It's not difficult to see how the effects and even certain concepts were ahead of their time. Compared to other films using heavy special effects in the 1950s, War of the Worlds was about as good as one could get. It's also rather commendable that the story doesn't dally too much on extraneous melodrama or atonal, hokey jokes, something that other sci-fi classics like The Forbidden Planet couldn't completely avoid. War of the Worlds didn't hesitate from showing people getting atomized, including a well-meaning minister and other do-gooders. This creates a slightly darker tone than the Technicolor veneer might suggest.
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| For its time, the effects were cutting-edge for film. Today, though, it can be hard not to smirk at the rudimentary nature of the visuals and light effects. |
When one keeps in mind the time and context, it's not at all difficult to see why this movie was, and still is, considered a seminal sci-fi movie. When one simply judges it on its own merits, though, it just cannot stack up to more modern, sophisticated science-fiction movies.
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