1408 (2007) dir. Mikael Hafstrom

John Cusack was John Cusack, Sam Jackson wore a nice suit, and Room 1408 was haunted.

Not much of a review but 1408 is exactly what it is - a haunted house movie with John Cusack in it. I knew what I was getting and got exactly what I was expecting. Some of the movie was spooky, a few jump scares, John Cusack says something cocky, Stephen King's "man dealing with fallout of family crisis" storyline, decent direction and cinematography, some neat spooky sound design, and a fairly forgettable score with a Carpenter's song as the "uh oh" trigger. I wasn't disappointed nor was I blown away.

1408 is a solid creepy ghost story/haunted house movie that moves a little slow at times - I think the audience we saw it with was bored most of the time. Worth seeing at a matinee if you can sneak off and hide one afternoon during the week.

Humourous sidenotes:

I accidentally wore my "Steven King Rules" Monster Squad shirt to the movie. Spoooooky! I still felt ashamed when I realized what I did. At least I wasn't the lady who wore a Serenity shirt to Slither.

The next day Amanda and I were having dinner at the diner next to our house and that Carpenters song came on! Spooooooky!

Black Snake Moan (2007)

No need to mince words here: Black Snake Moan is not what you are led to expect from the posters and trailers. This is not the Southern Gothic exploitation movie some reviewers have called it. It starts off in that direction but about two-thirds of the way through switches gears and shifts into a piss poor message of hope movie.

On the upside Black Snake Moan is great to look at, the music is scorching, the acting is solid, (Samuel L. Jackson gets to act for once) and even skeletal Christina Ricci has a great rack. The first half of the movie is great and moves along nicely no fuss, no muss. And then it falls apart. My biggest problem is with time. There just seems to be an absurdly short period of time for everything to happen. This makes all that transpires seem trite, forced, and undermines the rest of the movie. If characters had the chance to develop a believable rapport, been able to really dig into their characters, then Black Snake Moan could have been Old Testament powerful.

Maybe I'm missing something but in the end Black Snake Moan was about as thrilling as a muzak version of a Stevie Ray Vaughn song.