Directed by Mikael Håfström
Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Written by Screenplay: Matt Greenberg,Scott Alexander,Larry Karaszewski
Short story: Stephen King
Starring John Cusack,Samuel L. Jackson,Mary McCormack
Music by Gabriel Yared
Cinematography Benoît Delhomme
Running time 112 min.
Country United States
Language English
Mike Enslin is a skeptic and author who, after the death of his daughter Katie, writes books confirming and rating supernatural vacation spots (such as haunted inns)
despite his knowing they are fake. After his latest book, he receives an anonymous postcard from The Dolphin, a very old but rather posh hotel on 61st Street in New
York City, bearing the message "don't enter 1408". Viewing this as a challenge, Enslin attempts to book a reservation for room 1408, but the hotel will not rent him the
room. However, after being informed by Enslin's agent, Sam Farrell, that the Fair Housing Act requires hotels to rent unoccupied rooms, the Dolphin reluctantly reserves
room 1408 for Enslin.
Arriving at the Dolphin, Enslin is pulled aside by the hotel's manager, Gerald Olin, (Samuel L. Jackson) who warns him that no one has lasted more than an hour in 1408.
Olin offers Enslin an upgrade to the penthouse suite, access to documents regarding the deaths in 1408, and an $800 bottle of cognac if Enslin would abandon his plan
to stay at 1408. Enslin accepts the documents and the cognac but insists on staying in the room and ridicules the belief in ghosts. Olin outright dismisses the possibility
of ghosts, saying only that 1408 is "an evil fucking room" before giving Enslin the key.
Once inside the room, Enslin pulls out his Mini Cassette recorder and dictates on the unremarkability of room 1408. As he examines the room, the radio suddenly starts
blaring "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters, initially thinking it is just a gag cooked up by Olin. The room suddenly becomes exceedingly hot and Enslin calls for
a mechanic to fix the thermostat. While the mechanic does arrive, he refuses to enter the room and merely tells Enslin how to fix the thermostat which he does and leaves
immediately after finishing his business. Later, Enslin is startled again as the clock radio begins to play the same song. When he turns the clock off the display flickers and
changes to read "60:00", then starts counting down from 60 minutes. Suddenly, Enslin is unable to hear anything, apart from a tinnitus-like ringing in his ears, and opens the
window to check his hearing; the window slams down, cutting a large gash in the top of his hand. He rushes to the bathroom to wash the wound in the sink, but the water
suddenly becomes boiling hot and damages his wound even further. His hearing quickly returns and he bandages his hand using a bandana from his bag. Wishing to go to a
hospital, Enslin attempts to leave the room; however his key breaks off in the door. He still manages to unlock the door, but then the doorknob falls off, trapping him inside 1408.
Enslin begins to see and hear things, including visions of his daughter's time in the hospital shortly before her death, but he initially dismisses them as hallucinations. Among
one of these strange visions is a face-to-face encounter with his own father, who tells him, "As I was, you are. As I am, you will be", a quote attributed to the Roman poet
Horace regarding death. Enslin also attempts to seek help from a man who appears to be watching TV in an apartment building opposite of 1408. However as Enslin attempts
to signal for help he notices the man is mimicing his exact movements. When Enslin pulls a lamp to test the doppleganger the stranger is revealed to be a doppleganger of Enslin.
The doppleganger is then attacked by a mysterious balding woman wielding a crobar. Enslin turns around to the woman appearing behind him and trying to attack him, as Enslin
retreats into a corner the woman disappears. Enslin then sees the supposed ghost of a middle-aged man from an early 1900s era jumping out of the window, as well as a sobbing
woman from the 1950s; both jump out of the window presumably to end their suffering within the room. He makes several attempts to free himself from the room such as crawling
through the air vents, where he is seen being chased by a mummified body (one of 1408's earlier victims). Enslin maps the room's location finding that 1410 is next to 1408 and
attempts to reach the next room via a window ledge, however the width of the building appears to go on forever with no other windows in sight. He manages to contact his estranged
wife Lily by video chat, but the conversation ends abruptly when the sprinkler system shorts out his laptop. All the while the room temperature drops, eventually to subzero temperatures.
However, his laptop starts working again and he hears Lily calling out to him by video chat, but a doppelgänger of him hijacks the conversation, urging Lily to come the hotel immediately
and enter room 1408. As a panicked Enslin watches this conversation end, the doppelgänger looks at him directly and winks. The room begins to shake violently and the interior
cracks and explodes as water fills the room, pulling Enslin under the surface.
Enslin wakes up on the beach, the result of an earlier surfing accident that is depicted earlier in the film when he became unconscious. He soon finds Lily at his bedside in the hospital near
his home in Los Angeles. She tells him that he was hospitalized after sustaining a concussion. He immediately writes a novel on his experience in 1408 and goes to mail it. This reprieve
is short-lived, however; when at the post office, a construction crew made up of hotel staff and guests begin to destroy the interior, revealing the walls and floor of 1408 underneath
showing that Enslin is really still trapped in the room. There is a small inscription on the wall visible from the window, reading Burn Me Alive. Enslin lastly encounters his dead daughter,
alive, but dying again, and crumbling to dust as the clock radio's countdown approaches zero; when it finally reaches zero the room changes back to its original, undamaged appearance.
