1408

Have you stayed in room 1408 at the Dolphin? Of course not - it's fictional. First in a short story by Stephen King, now as a motion picture starring John Cusack. One of my favorite authors and one of my favorite actors. When I saw it roughly a week ago, I was hopeful that it would be that rare thing - a good adaptation of a Stephen King story - and was not disappointed.

King is not, by his own admission, a Christian so to try to compare his work with CS Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien may seem unfair to some. My impression is that King would get a lower favorability rating than JK Rowling by most conservative Christians. But while he does not fall within the same religious foundation as a Lewis or Tolkien, King deals with a lot of the same themes. 1408 is about unbeliever confronted with true evil. It is not, though some may take it that way, a "ghost" story. It is more like Christine, or From a Buick 8, or Black House in that the room, a supposedly inanimate object, is the villain of the piece.

I'm sure over time I will have more to say here about Mr. King and his work. But if you like scary movies at all, I put 1408 in the "see at the theater" category. One other ranking criteria, though probably obvious for this film: it is not a "family" film. Do not take immature (you determine what that is for your) children.

Sidenote 1: When, on the occasion that I have seen a movie and chose to rank it, my rankings (high to low) will be:

1. See at the theater
2. Rent the DVD (or pay per view if that is your preference)
3. Catch it on a premium channel
4. Watch it on basic cable (you'll enjoy the breaks)
5. Don't waste your precious time

Sidenote 2: Many King stories don't translate well to cinema. Movies like Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption made the transition well, but many of the more stereotypical Stephen King stories have not faired so well (don't get me started on Hearts in Atlantis, which was actually a terrible version of "Low Men in Yellow Coats" and not "Hearts in Atlantis" proper at all). Why this is might be a good discussion topic for a future date.

The Boundary of Imagination

An off-hand comment tonight got me thinking about an old Twilight Zone episode called "Kick the Can" that was also included (as a remake) in the theatrical version of the show. If I had to list one TV show as my all-time favorite, The Twilight Zone (TWZ) would probably be it.

There are a number of reasons, not the least of which was the quality of most of the episodes. Like many TV shows, some episodes are better than others, and the disparity in TWZ episodes maybe more so than others. They covered a wide range of subjects and genres, unlike Rod Serling's follow on project, The Night Gallery, which was primarily a horror anthology. Even a comparison to the science fiction anthology The Outer Limits would not be appropriate.

TWZ had genuinely scary episodes, like "Twenty-Two" and "The Hitch-Hiker" but they were the minority. It also had some true science fiction episodes, like "Back There" (a time travel story starring the Professor - Russell Johnson - from Giligan's Island), "To Serve Man" (a first contact story), and "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" (a look at life in the year 2000). Again, these are more the minority. The shows covered the fringes of horror and science fiction, focusing more on characters, surprise endings (who are the invaders in "The Invaders"), and the question of what it means to be human.

Some episodes, like "The Encounter" about a WWII soldier and a young American of Japenese descent (Sulu - George Takei - from the original Star Trek), were too controversial for repeat airings. "The Howling Man" deals with the reality of the Devil and "The Obsolete Man" deals with individual faith versus a totalitarian state atheism. A few were more or less comedies (e.g. "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby").

If you are going to watch television, and have never seen The Twilight Zone, I strongly recommend it to you. Whether you catch repeats on The Sci Fi channel or buy a DVD (just make sure you get the original series circa 1959-1964) it is arguably as good as TV gets.