Quotes
 Mike Enslin: [Olin gives Enslin the room key] Most hotels have switched to magnetics. An actual key. That`s a nice touch, it`s antiquey.
Gerald Olin: We have magnetic cards also, but electronics don`t seem to work in 1408. Hope you don`t have a pacemaker.
Mike Enslin: [into his tape recorder] General manager claims that the phantom in room interferes...
Gerald Olin: I have *never* used the word "phantom."
Mike Enslin: Oh, I`m sorry. Uh, spirit? Specter?
Gerald Olin: No, you misunderstand. Whatever`s in 1408 is nothing like that.
Mike Enslin: Then what is it?
Gerald Olin: It`s an evil fucking room. Gerald Olin: The first victim, Mr. Kevin O` Malley, sewing machine salesman, checked into the hotel the first week it opened, October, 1912.
Mike Enslin: Cut his own throat, right?
Gerald Olin: Well that`s not the horrific part. Afterwards, in a fit of insanity, he tried to stitch himself back together using an old sewing needle before he bled to death.
[leans over Mike]
Mike Enslin: Easy, man.
Mike Enslin: Stay scared.
Gerald Olin: Well done Mr. Enslin, well done.
[repeated line]
Mike Enslin: All right. You win. You win.
Katie: Mommy, do you know where I`m going?
Mike Enslin: Hey... you`re not going anywhere. You`re staying right here with us. Okay?
Katie: Daddy... everybody dies.
Lily Enslin: When they`re older.
Mike Enslin: Much, much older than you.
Lily Enslin: And for the people who go, its beautiful. All their friends are there...
Katie: Is God there Daddy?
Mike Enslin: Yes.
Katie: Do you really believe that Daddy?
[repeated line in flashbacks]
Mike Enslin: I`m going out to buy some cigarettes.
Room 1408: Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room!
Mike Enslin: Look man, just give me the key.
Gerald Olin: Mr. Enslin, you...
Mike Enslin: Just give me the key! Listen, I stayed... at the Bixby House. I brushed my goddamn teeth right next to the tub where Sir David Smith drowned his whole family, and I stopped being afraid of vampires when I was 12. Do you know why I can stay in your spooky old room, Mr. Olin? Because I know that ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties... don`t exist. And even if they did, there`s no God to protect us from them, now is there?
Gerald Olin: So I can`t talk you out of this?
Mike Enslin: I think we`ve reached an understanding.
Mike Enslin: They say you can`t die in your dreams... is that true?
Katie: Are there people where I`m going?
Mike Enslin: Hey... you`re not going anywhere, kiddo. You`re going to stay right here with us.
Katie: Daddy... everyone dies.
Lily Enslin: When they`re old.
Mike Enslin: When they`re much older.
Lily Enslin: Okay? And then they go to a better place. It`s beautiful there, all your friends will be there.
Katie: Is God there?
Mike Enslin: Yes.
Katie: Do you really believe that Daddy?
Father: [to Mike] As I was, you are. As I am, you will be.
Mike Enslin: [yelling at the top of his voice] We didn`t do enough!
Lily Enslin: [crying] Oh god! What are you talking about? We did everything we could have done!
Mike Enslin: [still yelling] We should have helped her fight! Not filled her head up with bullshit stories of heaven, and clouds and nirvana!
[flips over coffee table]
Lily Enslin: [crying] She liked those stories!
Mike Enslin: [no longer yelling] I need to get some cigarettes...
Mike Enslin: Lily, did you call the police?
Lily Enslin: Yeah. They`re in room 1408. The room`s empty.
Mike Enslin: The room`s gotta be filthy. I mean, the sheets haven`t been changed in... what, eleven years?
Gerald Olin: No no no. We`re very professional here. 1408 gets a light turn once a month. I supervise, the maids work in pairs. We treat the room as if it`s a chamber filled with poison gas. We only stay 10 minutes and I insist the door remain open. But still... A few years ago a young maid from El Salvador found herself locked in the bathroom. She was only there for a few moments, but when we pulled her out she was...
Mike Enslin: [sarcastically] She was dead?
Gerald Olin: No. Blind. She had taken a pair of scissors and gouged her eyes out. She was laughing hysterically.
Mike Enslin: Let`s "Encyclopedia Brown" this bitch.
Mike Enslin: Why don`t you just kill me?
Room 1408: Because all guests of this hotel enjoy free will, Mr. Enslin.
Mike Enslin: [after escaping from the ventilation shaft and falling back into 1408] Ah, its good to be back.
Mike Enslin: [yelling] I want... my *drink*!
Gerald Olin: [pats documents regarding 1408`s victims] I will let you have this, give you access to my office, you can take notes and put it all in your book. My only condition... is that you do not stay in that room.
Mike Enslin: You`ll let me look at all that stuff?
[considering Olin`s offer]
Gerald Olin: Hmm.
Mike Enslin: I never did get that drink.
[Olin pours a glass of the $800 whiskey, handing it to Enslin. Enslin takes a sip]
Mike Enslin: Ooh, that is good.
Gerald Olin: [smiling] Here, keep it. Compliments of the house.
[hands bottle to Enslin]
Mike Enslin: [after dropping the bottle into his bag and taking another sip] I`m still staying.
Gerald Olin: [yelling] Dammit to hell!
Gerald Olin: You do drink don`t you?
Mike Enslin: Of course. I just said I was a writer.
Mike Enslin: [staring at the endless door] Open it.
Mike Enslin: [after the toilet paper has been turned down, and the chocolates appear] Finally! Something to for me to write about! A ghost that offers turn down service!
Gerald Olin: The causes of death in 1408 range from heart attack, stroke, drowning.
Mike Enslin: Drowning?
Gerald Olin: Yes, one Mr. Grady Miller drowned in his chicken soup.
Mike Enslin: That`s hard to do, h - how did he do that?
Gerald Olin: How indeed.
[examining the mini-bar in room 1408]
Mike Enslin: Eight dollars for Beer Nuts? This room *is* evil!
Mike Enslin: [sobbing] No... no, you can`t take her twice...
[the problem about Mike staying in 1408]
Gerald Olin: Look, I`m not telling you not to stay in that room for your own good or for the profit of the hotel. Frankly, selfishly, I just don`t want to clean up the mess.
Room 1408: Eight. This is eight. We have killed your friends. Every friend is now dead. Six. This is six.
Room 1408: You can choose to repeat this hour over and over again, or you can take advantage of our express checkout system.
[Mike looks into the other room and sees a hanging noose]
Mike Enslin: He gave me booze! Did he take a sip? I can`t remember. Or maybe it was the chocolate! Don`t take candy from strangers!
Mike Enslin: [describing the room] There`s a sofa, a writing desk, faux antique armoire, floral wallpaper. Carpet`s unremarkable except for a stain beneath a thrift-store painting of a schooner lost at sea. The work is done in the predictably dull fashion of Currier and Ives. The second painting is of an old woman reading bedtime stories - a Whistler knockoff - to a group of deranged children while another Madonna and child watch from the background. It does have the vague air of menace. The third and final, painfully dull painting, the ever popular "The Hunt". Horses, hounds and constipated British lords. Some smartass spoke about the banality of evil. If that`s true, then we`ve in the 7th circle of hell.
[turns off tape recorder and pauses, then turns it back on]
Mike Enslin: It does have its charms.
Mike Enslin: [talk into tape recorder] Hotels are a naturally creepy place... Just think, how many people have slept in that bed before you? How many of them were sick? How many... died?
Gerald Olin: Hotels are all about presentation and fertile creature comforts.
Book Store Cashier: Where is the best place where I can see ghosts?
Mike Enslin: Haunted Mansion, Orlando.
Trivia
Kate Walsh was originally cast in this film, but was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the television show "Grey`s Anatomy" (2005). She was replaced by Mary McCormack.
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# The story this film was based on was almost never written. Stephen King originally created the first few pages of `1408` for his nonfiction book, "On Writing," as an example of how to revise a first draft. The story, however, intrigued him, and he wound up not only finishing a complete draft, but adapting it for an audio-book compilation of short stories.
There are many references to the number "13" throughout the movie. The room is numbered "1408", add each number together equals 13. The room is on the 14th floor, and the Hotel skips the 13th floor, so the room is technically on the 13th floor. The room`s key lock also has "6214" etched into it, which adds up to 13. And the first death was in the year 1912, which adds to 13.
One of the first victims of the room was named "Grady." Grady was a character in "The Shining," Stephen King`s other horror story about a hotel.
In addition to the previous numbers adding up to 13, the hotel is mentioned to be at 2254 Lexington Street in New York City. 2254 adds up to 13.
At one point in the movie Mike wears a hat that says "Paranoia is total awareness". This is a nod to one of Stephen King`s favorite quotes, "Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness".
When the clock starts counting down from 60:00, the movie ends exactly one hour later.
The axe the fireman uses to break down the hotel door at the end of the movie is the same axe that Jack Nicholson used in The Shining (1980) (both movies were also shot at the same studio -- Elstree, in London)
Towards the beginning of his stay in room 1408, Mike mentions that "some smart-ass" once wrote about the `banality of evil.` The smart-ass in question is German political theorist and intellectual Hannah Arendt, who wrote about the `banality of evil` in her essay "Eichmann in Jerusalem."
While addressing his audience at the book signing, Mike says, "Stay scared." This is a phrase traditionally used by director George A. Romero, a friend of Stephen King`s. Romero has said this at numerous conventions and often uses it as part of his signature.
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# Mike Enslin has a Chicago White Sox hat. Chicago is John Cusack`s home town. Also, in a previous film, Eight Men Out (1988), Cusack portrayed White Sox third-baseman George "Buck" Weaver. Cusack himself is a both a devoted Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox fan. He has said so in numerous interviews.
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# The initial story inspiration for 1408 came from a collection of real-life news stories about parapsychologist Christopher Chacon`s investigation of a notoriously haunted room at the famous Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, CA, as well as another undisclosed hotel on the East Coast.
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# In the movie John Cusack`s character says to his recorder, "hotel rooms are just naturally creepy places, don`t you think? I mean How many people have slept in that bed before you? How many of them were sick? How many were losing their minds?" Stephen King wrote this in his explanatory note of 1408 in his compilation book of short stories.
Enslin, while looking at the book of the murders, unknowingly, circles the 14th floor and ends up back at the elevator he got off. The classical music that is playing in the elevator was featured in the beginning of "Father`s Day", the first segment which was part of the anthology collection Creepshow (1982). The screenplay for that film was written by Stephen King and the segment after "Father`s Day" featured, as the lead, none other than Stephen King himself.
John Cusack`s second appearance in a Stephen King film adaptation. The first was _Stand By Me (1986)_.
# The bottle that Gerald Olin offers Mike Enslin is named "Les Cinquant Sept Décès". In French, it means literally "The fifty seven deaths". And just after that we learn that in the room 1408 there were 56 deaths. So we could have guessed that Mike`s fate was "written".
Mary McCormack was pregnant throughout filming, explaining why most shots of her are filmed above the waist.
As Enslin is walking to 1408, reading the files Olin gave him, he comes across a page that says "My brother was eaten by wolves on the Connecticut Turnpike." This is a reference to King`s short story. As Enslin loses his mind in the room, that is the last intelligible thing he says to his tape recorder. His brother actually died of lung cancer.
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