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By Christina Radish
 In 1408, renowned horror novelist Mike Enslin (John Cusack) believes only in what he can see with his own two eyes. After a string of bestsellers discrediting paranormal events in the most infamous haunted houses and graveyards around the world, Enslin checks into suite 1408 of the notorious Dolphin Hotel for his latest project, “Ten Nights in Haunted Hotel Rooms.” Defying the warnings of the hotel manager (Samuel L. Jackson), the author is the first person in years to stay in the reputedly haunted room, where many individuals have met their untimely ends. He soon goes from skeptic to true believer, as he confronts his demons, in an effort to survive the night.
Adapted from the terrifying short story by suspense master, Stephen King, 1408 tells the story of a room haunted with a spirit that manipulates whatever events its occupants bring in with them from their pasts. John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson talk to MediaBlvd Magazine about their own experiences in creepy hotels.
MediaBlvd Magazine> When did you first become aware of Stephen King and his work?
John Cusack> My parents took us to Nantucket to visit some cousins, in 1978 or ‘79. The Shining had already come out and was a classic, and it was in all the revival houses. I snuck into a theater around six o’clock because it was an R-rated movie, and then I had to walk back to this cottage where we were staying. When I got out of the movie, it was night and it was a pretty windy road with these lamps. That was the scariest walk home I’ve ever taken, after a movie. I was about 12 years old, and that freaked me out. I snuck in alone and then I had to walk home for about 20 minutes, by myself. That was a bad walk. I thought I heard Jack Nicholson around the corner of every bush. That was my first entre into Stephen King. Then, as I got older, I saw Carrie and I read The Stand in about one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. I think he’s very underrated as a writer. Also, his sense of character is very underrated. He writes terrific characters. Everybody sort of dismisses him as not being a literary talent because he’s so pop-cultured, but I think he’s pretty damn good.
MediaBlvd> John, what was the challenge of acting alone all those weeks like, compared to being on set with other actors?
John> Mikael Hafstrom and I felt like we had Stockholm Syndrome, where the room was keeping us captive. But then, as soon as we got out of the room, and we got to work with Mary and Sam, it was kind of strange. We did scenes in the lobby and there were all these extras, and then we’d go out to Venice Beach and there would be surfers and things, and we would both think, “We’ve got to get back in the room, where it’s safe and horrible.” Staring at the walls and getting tortured started to make more sense than dealing with people. It was pretty fun. I thought the piece was very ambitious, in that way, and Mikael didn’t know if he could pull it off. How do you pull off that kind of dance in a room, with just the D.P., the director, the actor and anything you can think of to do to him?
MediaBlvd> Were you injured at all?
John> I was emotionally injured, but I wasn’t physically hurt, although we tried. We did almost everything you could do to a person in a room. We lit ourselves on fire, we froze ourselves under water, had earthquakes, hung me off a wall, and Sam was sarcastic to me. I was wounded by the experience.
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John Cusack at the premiere of "Runaway Jury" held at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, Calif. on October 9, 2003. | MediaBlvd> What is the scariest hotel room experience you’ve ever had?
Samuel L. Jackson> The most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me was checking into what’s called a hotel at a game reserve in South Africa last year. When we checked in, the guy didn’t ask for a credit card, he asked us to sign a release. That’s when you start thinking, “That’s very bad.” And, it was just for walking from the check-in desk to my room.
John> Besides normal jetlag, where you wake up in Dusseldorf and you have no idea what country you’re in or what room you’re in, which has happened to me before, I was also in a game reserve in South Africa. They said we had to go back at night with a guard because some woman had gotten eaten by a cat, when she tried to walk back to her cottage. That’s a true story. If you’re in one of these hotels in Africa, it’s where the animals live, so it’s pretty real. I also did a movie in upstate New York and there was this very scary old hotel that I found out Stephen King based The Shining on. It’s this big hotel and it was supposed to be haunted. We went walking back one night, after one too many cocktails, and it was a little frightening in there.
MediaBlvd> Do you see 1408 as a cousin to The Shining?
John> It’s definitely in that same ballpark.
Samuel> When you start to talk about a place being evil, it’s not the whole place, it’s just a particular section of this particular building that’s possessed. Everybody there knows, and this guy comes to be a believer. If you’re in that room with him, through this film, you become a believer too.
MediaBlvd> The character of Mike Enslin believes only in what he can see with his own two eyes. Does that ring true for either of you?
John> That doesn’t ring true for me. I thought one of the fun things about this piece was that Stephen King had written this very terrifically cynical character that is basically daring the gods, or the devils, to come and show themselves. Houdini used to go around and debunk all the people who were mystics, but secretly it was because his mother died and he wanted to have proof that there was another world. Mike Enslin is a paranormal debunker, but he’s really just screaming, “Show me there’s something out there in the universe,” because he suffered the loss of his daughter. To go from a very worldly, cynical, “Bring it on,” kind of a guy, and then to totally break him down and have him be a true believer by the end, is a pretty fun journey. Myself, I would never be that cynical. I think there’s definitely stuff going on beyond our senses. I definitely think there’s much more than meets the eye.
Samuel> I grew up in Tennessee, around people who believed all kinds of things. I was told ghost stories at night by my grandfather and his brothers. And, there was one lady in my neighborhood, because I grew up as a segregated child, that when we got hurt or sick, or whatever, and couldn’t afford to go to the doctor or even the hospital, we went to see. She was called “the root lady,” and she would actually come over and put very sticky stuff on you and chant, and you would get well. We didn’t buy chickens from the store, we bought live chickens and killed them, and she got the heads and feet. There were people who died in our neighborhood that we saw long after they were dead. If you were out at night and looking around the wrong place, you’d look up and there would be that lady who used to call your house and tell your mother you were doing something wrong, and you weren’t the only person that saw her. That phenomenon went on throughout my life. People would tell you stories about places you could go to see things. There was a school bus that turned over in this particular place and, if you go there at a certain time of night, you can hear the kids crying and hear the screeches of the tires. There were lots of things that we couldn’t explain. But, there are lots of things that we can’t explain that are just part of our culture.
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Samuel L. Jackson at the MTV Movie Awards held at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, Calif. on June 3, 2007. | MediaBlvd> Do you consider yourself fearless?
Samuel> No, I’m quite the opposite of fearless. I’m the guy that sits in the horror movie and says, “Don’t go in the dark room. You’re safe in this particular place right here. Stay there until it gets light and call somebody, and don’t go in the dark room. Don’t go down the stairs. Don’t go see what the noise is.” Even in my house in Beverly Hills, if I’m at home by myself, my house is big enough that, if I hear something down the hall, I’ll just stay in my room. I’ll go turn the alarm on and, if something happens, then the alarm will go off, but I’m not going to go down the hall to see if something’s not right. I’m not that interested. I’ve got a gun, too. I will take the gun out and put it on the bed and, if somebody comes in the room that’s not supposed to be in the house, I’ll just start shooting.
John> The cool thing about this movie is that this character goes in the room at about minute 16, and then, we go for another hour and see if we can top it, or see if we can sustain that kind of thing. I’ve been lucky, the only times I’ve had weird paranormal events happen were a couple of times when I thought things had moved, but I don’t think it was a bad spirit. I don’t think I’ve ever really been in the presence of anything truly evil that I couldn’t explain.
Samuel> I remember doing a movie and just being freaked out because I was in New Mexico. We shot in Alamogordo and, when we finished, we had to go back to Santa Fe. For some strange reason, I drove myself from Santa Fe to Alamogordo and, when we were going back, I was in my car alone because nobody wanted to ride back with me. I was on a lonely New Mexico highway, saying to myself, “Please don’t let anything show up in the sky and beam me up.” In New Mexico, you’re always seeing shit that’s in the sky. All I could say was, “Please let nothing pull in front of my car and just hover.”
MediaBlvd> This film deals with personal demons. What inner demon do you have that you would be terrified to be faced with in a hotel room?
John> A shallow demon would be rats. It hasn’t happened to me, but a big demon would be if I was responsible for someone else’s death, or something. If something like that happened, I’d be haunted by that person. Being responsible for doing something to someone would be my worst fear.
Samuel> Not working would be my personal demon. On a deeper level, I guess getting older is one of those things. I’m disturbed because Alzheimer’s runs in my family. When I walk into a room and I don’t know why I walked in there, it is really starting to fuck with me. I’m having that issue, but I’m doing more crossword puzzles to help. |
