Double Feature

October 2008 - Prepare to be scared! October is high time for haunting, and there are plenty of places around here ready, willing and able to scare you in exchange for a small admission fee. One of the newest attractions is Altered Nightmares in Weissport, my old stomping grounds. Altered Nightmares bills itself as the "most extreme and downright disturbing" haunted attraction in Pennsylvania. Do you dare to find out if it lives up to the hype?

Perhaps one of the characters you'll encounter there is a serial killer. Which raises the question: Do all serial killers have a pattern? The possibility that the answer is "No" is the premise for Suspect Zero, an R-rated thriller from 2004. Aaron Eckhart, Carrie-Anne Moss and Ben Kingsley star.

Eckhart plays Tom Mackelway an FBI agent who's been banished to the Albuquerque office because of something that happened in Dallas. Moss is Fran, his former partner/lover. Soon after Mackelway arrives in Albuquerque, a traveling salesman is murdered and his eyelids are cut off. Fran is brought in to help Tom handle the case. Two more murders follow and all clues lead to a mentally suspect man named Benjamin O'Ryan (Kingsley).

Overall Review: Ehhh, it was OK. It takes a while for the plot to develop. But, if you can stick with the film for the first half-hour, the rest of it is OK.

For a thriller that's more than OK, try 1408, a PG-13 film from 2007. As the movie opens, it's a dark and stormy night, and author Michael Enslin (John Cusack) has just checked in to an inn known for being haunted. Enslin is something of a ghost hunter, but he doesn't really believe in ghosts.

Still, when Enslin receives a postcard warning him "not" to stay in room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, he's intrigued. He notices that the room numbers add up to 13, and his research shows that anyone who checks into room 1408 tends to check out by dying a violent death.

Hotel manager Samuel L. Jackson tries to talk Enslin out of staying in the room, but Enslin is determined. So, armed with his trusty tape recorder and an $800 bottle of liqueur, he heads to room 1408, where the clock radio has a nasty habit of suddenly playing the Carpenters' classic, "We've only just begun..."

Overall review: Liked it. 1408 is John Cusack's movie. He has to carry the movie and he does. My only problem is a plot point involving the room itself. When he checks in to the Dolphin, Enslin is given an old-fashioned key to room 1408. He's told that the modern magnetic keys just don't work in that room. However, all the electronics seem to work - the clock radio, the TV, the fax machine, Enslin's tape recorder. None of those things seems to be affected by the force that prevents a magnetic key from working. Still, the movie has good special effects, lots of suspense and at least one jump out of your seat moment. 1408 is worth checking into.