I wrote down some notes on the design of the movie 1408 as I watched it this week. Its story is utterly predictable: a skeptic who debunks ghost stories finds an actually haunted hotel room. At the same time, it takes that overused plot and turns it into something unique that keeps the viewer interested throughout.
One of the main visual themes is the use of warm lights in safe conditions and a pale blueish green at other times. The movie begins with very warm colors. The hotel room that is supposed to be haunted appears to be very clean and welcoming. One of the first things I noticed about it was that every room seemed to have a dozen lamps casting dynamic light rays up and down the walls. It disrupts the otherwise warm colors by cutting the room apart. What's more, the walls of the room are a strange shade of green that doesn't go well with the orange colors. The effect of this is that the room feels slightly off. The reason for the lamps also becomes obvious as soon as things start shaking the character up. He knocks them over constantly and the lines they cut across the room become extremely chaotic. In other words, the room is designed to be destroyed. Even small things like the sheets on the bed throw the careful balance off.
The camera helps to emphasize the feeling that the hotel room is changing. Throughout the movie, rooms seem to appear from nowhere, often containing old memories of the character's family. These rooms are very brightly lit, slightly foggy as if it were in a freezer, and a pale blueish. In order to facilitate these appearances, the camera never seems to show enough of the rooms to get oriented. When the character arrives in the room, the camera zooms in on the motion and sound of every abrupt motion he makes, like setting down the keys. Already knowing that something is going to go wrong, these motions put the viewer on edge. You know one of them will be the trigger but it actually is put off for an extremely long time. Right from the movie makes you watch for the moment everything goes wrong and you ignore the layout of the hotel around it. The particularly disorienting moments come when the radio turns on at full blast. It is so abrupt that you forget everything that was happening.
While the movie is very consistent in its thrills, it does have breaks every once in awhile. Each one seems almost like an end but you know that it won't be. The music will quiet down and the character will stop fumbling. The colors are often brighter and cleaner at these times. They also occur a lot in the rooms that are added to the hotel, meaning that the only time you have for orienting yourself is useless.
The designer of the movie tried hard to avoid using darkness as part of the scare-factor of the movie. They preferred instead the dynamic lighting of the lamps. There are a few times, though, that they did use darkness very well. The main example is when the character is first entering the room. The lights are off and you see his silhouette moving out into the room. That's when the almost friendly lights come on to reveal the almost friendly room within.
The exterior of the hotel has been distorted to make it seem more isolated. The room is 14 stories up and the ledge outside his window leads only to his window. The side of the building seems, at times, almost like the sides of a castle. All in all it doesn't fit in with the rest of the city around it.
One of the best touches to the movie is the oblivious phone operator. Several times she talks to him on the phone in his room but no matter how many times he yells at her to send help, she replies with a level of concern equal to Hal (I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that). He tries to get the attention of the people in the neighboring rooms, the man across the street, the cars down below, and anyone out in the hall. He almost succeeds but in the end it is always the room playing with his head.
There was one set of camera angles I really liked. When the TV in the corner of his room turned on and began playing a clip of his daughter, the camera was behind the TV, making it seem massive and him small. A few moments later, when he realized what was playing, it was reversed in a shot that showed him as large and revealed that the TV was a small thing in the corner. Another part I really liked was when he finally go ahold of his wife on his laptop only to have the room take over his webcam with another image of him, saying things he didn't want to say.
Whenever his memories and family are brought into the story by the room, he becomes vulnerable. For a short time, the room is destroyed and entirely made up of browns and greys. The only color comes from piercing lights shining through holes in the ceiling (as if the rest of the hotel above him no longer existed). He meets his dead daughter in this place and falls to his knees to hug her. As the viewer, you know the room will never be merciful to him. For a moment, though, there is a small circle of hope and warmth in the hotel among the burnt wood of the surroundings.
Anyway, the movie does a good job of avoiding the typical night-vision camera style that all other paranormal movies now use and the only ghosts that appear in the film are those of the other victims who died in the room. Its characters are believable- even after the inexplicable happens the character explains how it could be done normally- and they make it easier to contrast the emotions of the character to the feeling of the room (in other words, you can actually understand the character. He's not a squealing baby like those found in other horror movies). The colors enhance the sense of isolation and chaos.
