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This old-fashioned horror-suspense film, directed by Swede Mikael Håfström, is breath of fresh air to a genre recently overrun with gory, sadistic product, such as the Saws and Hostels.
Based on a short story by renowned horror novelist Stephen King, the plot concerns a skeptic whose search for proof of the afterlife has turned up nothing and resulted in a series of bestsellers disproving myths and rumored hauntings. His latest subject is a hotel room in Manhattan in which over 50 people have died under mysterious circumstances and no one has lasted more than an hour in. Blinded by his determination to prove the room's not haunted, he may, however, have stumbled into a real-life ghost story.
There is nary a drop of blood in this film, let alone the flesh-slicing, organ-bursting violence we've come to expect from the recent horror crop. Instead, horror is found, at first, in small noises on the other side of closed doors or in the walls, and, later, in surreal phantasmic visions and situations. And I loved every moment of spine-tingling atmosphere and suspense.
Though Samuel L. Jackson, as a smooth, mysterious hotelier who warns against entering the room (which he aptly describes as "an evil #$*!ing room"), and Mary McCormack, as the protagonist's estranged ex-wife, lend unblemished support, neither has more than fifteen minutes of screen time. This is a one-man show and the man is John Cusack, the laconic, hip teen star who graduated to being a laconic, hip romantic-lead veteran. The film is entirely based on his character's transformation from sneering cynic to terrified believer as the supernatural entity controlling the room preys on his fears and sad memories and assaults him with horrifying apparitions. The actor pulls it off, hitting every emotional note perfectly.
The film isn't perfect. On a pure terror level, though it is very effective, it falls short of the other Stephen King-based hotel nightmare, The Shining with Jack Nicholson. And an attempt at a twisty false ending is too clever by half and serves as a distracting (if only momentary) disruption to the plot's blistering forward momentum.
Still, it's extremely easy to recommend due to the high quality of acting and directing, and the appealing devotion to providing chills in a more elegant (and, today, rare) way.
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