Directed by Mikael Hafstrom

Based on a Stephen King short story, this is the story of Mike Enslin, a cynical writer of potboilers which debunk the paranormal, and his comeuppance. In the entertaining first part of the film John Cusack plays him as the witty, slightly zany guy who's a bit of a nerd, that he does so well. Bored with churning out book after book on run-of-the-mill hotels which use their ‘ghosts' to bring in visitors, and not overly successful (his book signing attracts about half a dozen enthusiasts), he is beguiled by an anonymous suggestion that he investigate Room 1408 (1+4+0+8 = ? - get it?) of the Dolphin Hotel, New York. Research which discovers news of many deaths there over the years whets his appetite, and no warnings from amiable but solemn Manager (Samuel L Jackson) can put him off checking in.

Some promise here then, but the major part of the film which follows doesn't quite come up with the goods. Hotel rooms can be sinister, as Enslin observes to himself, bearing the weight of all those people there before you, with their own loves and problems and reasons for sleeplessness, your own impermanence and unimportance... And this one certainly is at first glance, with its weird, bad pictures, its low lighting, its silence, its very mundanity. Then things begin to happen - the radio sets itself off, the heating goes wrong, and images of past, desperate guests begin to appear. But where do you go from there? It's soon clear that Enslin's breezy cynicism masks a past tragedy and subsequent disengagement with his feelings. He's trapped, the walls crack and bleed, he gets injured, time and space go haywire, and there's something very odd in the minifridge. Woe betide the man who cannot face up to his own emotions, and we enter more on a journey down the soul of Enslin than into a real creepiness, with redemption rather than survival at stake. How far is haunting just a recognition of the demons inside? But too much happens, and the film moves closer to the realm of disaster movie than chiller. It's clever, but becomes somehow wearisome.

Compared with the dread that settles on you watching The Shining, Stephen King's other tale of haunted hotel and troubled writer, it never truly frightens. Japanese horror movies have set the bar very high these days with regard to the scariness of mundane interiors. What's more, much as I love him, John Cusack just hasn't got the face for real fear - that narrow mouth opening into an O looks more quizzically surprised, a la Being John Malkovich, than expressing real terror. So that's it - undeniably entertaining in its own way, but give me the Overlook Hotel for real existential horror that accompanies you out of the cinema, any time.

Seen at Odeon Newcastle, 29 August 2007