1408 (film)

Writer Mike Enslin, a specialist in paranormal phenomena, writes a book about unusual phenomena and poltergeist in hotels. Cynical about life and not believing in the existence of ghosts and other inexplicable phenomena, Enslin receives an advertising card at the New York Hotel "Dolphin", with a warning: "Do not enter 1408!"

Wanting to expose the next, as it seemed to him, hotel’s advertising trick, he arrives at the Dolphin hotel and insistently demands the keys to room 1408, not heeding the warnings of senior manager Gerald Olin about the danger. Enslin learns that over the 95 years of the existence of Dolphin, 56 guests of this particular room committed suicide or died of natural causes, since the room "... is inhabited by pure evil." The manager’s passionate and convincing speech only inflamed the writer's curiosity.

Entering the coveted room and not finding at first anything supernatural, Mike writes to the recorder a voice report about the absence here, as in other hotels, of signs of restless souls. However, very, very soon, the clock on the bedside table will begin its 60-minute countdown, during which Mike will have to make a lot of efforts not to go crazy in the irrational world of number 1408, full of inexplicable horrors and incredible events. For a while, he even thought that he managed to get out of the room, and that all this was a nightmare. He even writes a fantastic manuscript about this nightmare. But when he comes to the post office to send the finished manuscript, the workers begin to tear down the walls, and the same number 1408 is found behind the destroyed walls of the office.

After Mike struggles through this hour, everything in the room returns to its place, even the alarm clock starts counting all over again. They call the room from the reception, where they tell him that he is in the fifth circle of hell and offer to live this hour again and again or use the so-called “quick discharge from the room” (that is, to commit suicide; after this call there are noises in the room, and Mike sees himself in a mirror hanging in a loop of linen). However, he, not wanting to die an egoist, makes Molotov’s cocktail from a bottle of cognac presented by Olin and sets fire to the room. A groan is heard from the ventilation hatch ....

Ending Options

• In the rental version, firefighters take the hero out of the room. Mike remains alive, from his wife he learns about a short circuit that happened in the room. However, as proof of the reality of what was happening, he still has a voice recorder on which the events are recorded and even the voice of the ghost of his daughter, which plunges his wife into shock when Mike decides to listen to the recording.
• The extended version is almost identical to the rental version, only, unlike the latter, when listening to the recorder, Lily was in another room and did not hear the recording.
• In the directorial version, Mike dies in a fire. He is buried, and personal belongings and a voice recorder remain with the hotel manager. At the same time, a new ghost appears in burnt room 1408 - Mike himself.
• In the expanded directorial version, the editor receives the manuscript that Mike wrote while in an illusory-alternative world.

• Official website