Oh my god, I think I just bought everything in the minibar.

The advantage of intentionally seeking out bad movies is you are rarely disappointed. I had such high hopes for the Stephen King movie 1408. There seems to have been opportunity somewhere in the raw footage or in an earlier draft of the screenplay for a good movie. After all, 1408 starts out strong as a classic ghost story, but in the end (or perhaps forty minutes before the end), director Mikael Håfström just couldn’t deliver. I think it’s a result of trying to do too little of the ghost story and do too much psychology.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of movie that needs spoilers in order to review properly — so beware, spoilers follow.

Mike Enslin somewhat cynically makes his living writing reviews of supposedly haunted hotels. He doesn’t actually believe in ghosts and he’s more than a little jaded, but he writes about them anyway. And then he gets a postcard in the mail, encouraging him to stay away from room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York. His interest piqued, he bulls his way into a reservation despite the best efforts of the hotel manager (played by Samuel L. Jackson) to persuade him to take another room.

This set is perfect for a Billy Idol video!

Jackson doesn’t really have to stretch all that much for this role, but I will say this: he tells a ghost story better than most. In fact, I am pretty sure I would have liked the movie better if it was just Samuel L. telling creepy stories, a kind of horror version of My Dinner with Andre. Sadly, we must leave Samuel L. in his wood-paneled luxury hotel office, with its $800 whiskey and humidor of fine cigars. And follow John Cusack up to Suite 1408.

Suite 1408 has more problems than us, though, for it must live up to the hype.

Let’s back up just a moment, though. Just prior to getting the postcard, Enslin — for no apparent reason — decides to go surfing. He’s distracted by an airplane flying overhead, is wiped out by wave, and knocked unconscious. He wakes up on the beach, a surfer asking him if he’s alright. This scene has no apparent connection to anything else up to this point in the movie. Now, if that gives you a sick, sinking feeling in your stomach, give yourself ten points. Because yes, the movie does eventually go there.

Dude, I wipe out on my board and wake up in the Matrix, bogus!

Enslin enters the room and starts an impromtu MSTie of the decor, laughing at the paintings and disparaging the view. Then the minor league creepy sets in. The radio comes on by itself, the bed makes itself, the window slams shut on his hand. It doesn’t take long for Enslin to change his mind about ghosts, but by that time the room won’t let him leave… at least until the painting of a ship on the ocean comes to life and floods the room with seawater — and Enslin wakes up on the beach in his wet suit.

If you’re a screenwriter there are two ways to go from here. You can go the “it was all just a dream” route, but that tends to send audiences into murderous rages. Or you can fake the play by having waking up be the dream and eventually return Enslin to his room, a story twist that became predictable about thirty seconds after the credits rolled on Nightmare on Elm Street. 1408 chooses this second option. But it should never have painted itself in that corner in the first place.

How did this movie become silly? 1408 did have me genuinely scared. But I think Håfström — and possibly even King — forgot what ghost stories are. Ghost stories are first and foremost about ghosts. Delving into Enslin’s unhappy family past gives the haunted room more weapons to use against him and more ways for the audience to sympathize with Enslin. But we’re not there to find out why Enslin is a cynical jerk. We’re there to find out why 1408 is haunted. We want the ghost story. We want to understand the fear, because understanding the fear is the first step to mastering it.

But we don’t get that. Beyond Samuel L. telling us sotto voce that the room is “fucking evil” we don’t get much in the way of motivation. And Enslin defeats the room by being traditionally destructive, not by understanding what makes the room tick. It’s not even clear Enslin has gotten anything significant out of the experience besides reuniting with his estranged wife. If ghost stories are half horror and half mystery — and I think they are — half of this movie has gone missing. And that’s sad, because it set that part of the story up so nicely.

People ask me why I watch bad movies intentionally. This movie is a good illustration: it’s just so darn depressing when a movie is almost good.

Mr. Enslin, please don’t make me say that thing about the snakes.