1408 (2007) Dir: Mikael Håfström

Based on a short story from Stephen King, initially released only in audiobook form, annoyingly, this starts out rather promisingly.
The plot:
The always interesting John Cusack plays Michael Enslin, a writer of paranormal tales rooted in genuine research. His style is based on visiting famous haunted locations, and reporting on how and why they are actually not haunted.
Coming from a sceptical point of view, Enslin feels that he is invulnerable to the paranormal until, one day, he checks into room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York and, before even an hour is through, he is stark raving mad, seeing phantoms of his deceased daughter and, most traumatically of all, hearing The Carpenter's on a permanent loop.
How ghastly.
Swedish director Mikael Håfström crafts an interesting tale, though one that does veer towards the ridiculous towards the end.
After an initial promising build up, and some moments of genuine fright, we drift into the surreal and, much like this year's Insidious, it quickly loses any sense of menace, instead leaving you goggling at the screen at the preposterousness of what's happening.
Still, Cusack is always an engaging on screen presence, and the tale does just about have the momentum to carry through to the end, but this is no classic.
Average fright fodder.

3 out of 5

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Dir: Frank Darabont

I'll let you in on a secret.
I have avoided watching this movie simply because I was sick and tired of being told how fantastic it is.
I was sick to the back teeth of the hype, of the fact that it is at #1 on IMDB, by the film critics banging on about it in a seemingly endless back-slap-a-thon that brought tears flowing out of my ears, such was the build up of pressure in my cranium.
But you know what?
It's bloody great.
I'll forsake the usual plot details here as, frankly, if you don't know what this is about by now, you're really not trying. Suffice to say there's a whole bunch of time spent in Shawshank, then we get fifteen minutes or so of redemption at the end.
The performances all round are exceptional, the stand out for me being Morgan Freeman, just slightly ahead of Tim Robbins.
But the real star turn here is by Frank Darabont, writer director and all round good egg, he seems to have a real passion for the writings of Stephen King (he also directed The Green Mile and the stunning The Mist), on whose short story this is based.
Compelling, funny, violent, harrowing, heart-warming (though in a good way), this is complex and riveting from start to finish and, frankly, I now feel I have wasted 17 years of my life that could have been spent watching this every few months.
Magical stuff.

5 out of 5

Dolores Claiborne (1995) Dir: Taylor Hackford

Question: Is it possible to make a decent movie out of probably Stephen King's most boring book (and that's up against some pretty stiff competition, folks, much as I love him).
Answer: Just about.
The plot: Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) is an old fashioned sort, living in a Maine backwater, washed out, having spent half of her life being run down by an abusive, alcoholic husband and the other half nursing a hideously pedantic rich old bitch for whom everything must be just so. We pick up the story as Dolores' estranged daughter Selena (the scrumptious Jennifer Jason Leigh) comes a-visitin', not out of the goodness of her heart, but because her mother is charged with murder, for the second time in her life. First time round, it was her husband she was accused of killing, though nothing was ever proved whilst, this time, it is the old woman she tends to.
The detective who failed to put her behind bars way back when is convinced she is guilty once more and will stop at nothing to make sure justice is served, a man on a mission, fuelled by the burning resentment he feels at his failure to secure a conviction all those years ago.
But what reason to kill the old hag?
One million dollars worth of reasons, in the form of an inheritance, Dolores the sole beneficiary.
The casting of Bates is a strange one, though perhaps understandable in marketing terms for the drooling masses.
"'Er was in vat Misery filum, wor 'er? Must be a seekwel, eh it?'"
Casting someone who created such an iconic character as Annie Wilkes was brave, especially as that film too was obviously adapted from a novel by the same author, but it pays off as she is clearly the star turn, evoking sympathy by the eyeful as the brow-beaten old spinster, alone in the world now that the woman she cared for is gone, even when in the same room as her own daughter.
Whilst not King's usual raison d'etre, it is hardly alien territory to the macabre one, as this taps into the same dark vein as much of his horror work, despite the lack of ghoulies and ghosties.
A tad overlong, this outstays its welcome by roughly twenty minutes, but nevertheless is a stylish, grimly tense and claustrophobic affair, spiced up by some power acting and King's trademark colourful and jaundiced black humour infusing the piece.
A quality crime drama.

4 out of 5