Jackson), who uses all manner of cajoling and bribery to try to keep the author from staying in the room overnight.

The necessary exposition is taken care of in a lengthy, crackling dialogue exchange between Mike and Dolphin manager Olin (Samuel L. A mysterious postcard leads him to New York City’s Dolphin Hotel, specifically room 1408, which turns out to have quite the tragic history: multiple suicides and other ghastly demises, plus a large number of natural deaths as well. He’s a writer who, having exorcised a few personal demons in a long-forgotten semiautobiographical novel, now makes a living writing about supposedly haunted places across the U.S., applying a healthy dose of skepticism to his subject matter. Larry Flynt and Man in the Moon, aren’t as incongruous choices for this project as they might at first seem their biopics have all been about creative types whose art was overshadowed in dramatic and unusual terms by their real lives and experiences, and that certainly applies to the story of Mike Enslin (John Cusack). The latter two, whose credits include Ed Wood, The People vs. Rather well, as it turns out, in the hands of director Mikael Håfström and scriptwriters Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski.

(His novellas, on the other hand, are juuuuust right, which is why The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me have been among the most successful translations, and which promises great things from The Mist.) And 1408, the tale that began as a writing exercise, was adapted in an audiobook and then found a print home in the Everything’s Eventual collection, posed a particular challenge: How does one turn a handful of pages about one guy in one hotel room into a satisfying close-to-two-hours of film? His novels tend to be packed with way more incident and characters than can be easily crammed into a two-hour feature his short stories are too, well, short to easily make the transition. One of the hurdles that has always been involved in bringing Stephen King’s written works to the big screen has been a simple matter of length. Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on June 14, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.

1408 short story book review