Hello everyone, I'm Little Z.
Today I bring you a movie adapted from the novel written by Stephen King: "1408 Phantom Murder", this movie has a total of four endings, I don't know if you have seen it?
This movie has a rating of 7.5 on Douban, which is a high rating as a horror movie.
The plot of the movie is actually very simple, a horror novelist wants to challenge the world's most terrifying hotel room: 1408, at first he only plans to stay one night, but in the end he finds that it is difficult to even last an hour...
One: The beginning
At the beginning of the movie, a small hotel is first introduced, and after the male protagonist spends a night unharmed, he gives the hotel five skulls (out of ten).
And a night in this hotel also led to the identity of the male protagonist, he is a horror novelist, although he likes to pretend to be a ghost in his novels, but he himself is an out-and-out atheist, and it is precisely because of his attitude that his novels have been tepid, even if the new book launch is held, few people come.
The male protagonist's interests and hobbies are not many, in addition to writing novels, the only hobby in his spare time may only be surfing.
The origin of the story occurs at noon one day, the male protagonist is checking his postcard and mail, suddenly saw a strange letter, which reads: Do not enter 1408.
The curious male protagonist took a pen and calculated that these numbers added up to exactly equal to 13.
In the West, the number 13 means inauspicious. The curious man immediately called to book a room, but was ruthlessly hung up by the hotel manager.
This attitude of refusing to return the favor made the male owner more excited, and immediately went to the hotel without saying a word to book a room, and was also strongly discouraged by the hotel manager.
Seeing that the male owner insisted on moving in, the manager had to take him into the office, tried everything to stop him, and even gave him a bottle of whiskey as a gift, but the male owner was not moved at all.
Seeing that the obstruction was ineffective, the manager pointed out that there had been a total of 56 deaths in room 1408 since its opening, and showed the male owner all the information, hoping to dispel his thoughts.
However, the male protagonist thought about it for half a day, and finally did not change his mind, seeing that the dissuasion was ineffective, the manager had no choice but to compromise.
In the end, the manager took out the key and took the man to the elevator to room 1408, where there were two very interesting details, one was that the manager said that the room was an evil door, there was no reason, and the other was that the manager mentioned that the reason for not closing the room was that the management hoped that everything had not happened, just like the hotel pretended not to have a 13th floor.
In the end, the elevator stopped on the 14th floor, but the manager was reluctant to get off the elevator and tried to dissuade the man from entering the room for the last time.
The male protagonist was not at all moved, lived in the room, thought that the room was broken, but did not expect that everything in the room was the same as a normal hotel, without any traces of terror, which could not help but make the male owner a little disappointed.
However, in the next step, the male protagonist spent the most memorable hour of his life.
Two: Horror experiences
The main experience of the male owner in the room is divided into the following points:
1: Autoplay record player
The record player on the bedside table automatically played three times after the male protagonist checked into the room, and each time it prompted the male protagonist: We are just getting started. However, every time it scared the male protagonist not lightly.
After the second play, the record player began counting down, just as the hotel manager Olin said at the beginning: "No tenant can survive an hour." "It all matches.
2: Various supernatural phenomena
In the early days of this room, various small events occurred, including small but gradually destroying the psychological defense line of the male protagonist
Auto-filled draw
A suddenly crooked portrait
Suddenly tinnitus can't hear anything
Taps that suddenly start spraying hot water
Inexplicable and eerie front desk call (in fact, it is not the front desk at all, it is the evil spirit of this house)
And these subtle phenomena add up, little by little, destroying the male protagonist's defense line, he panicked and tried to escape, but found that it was too late.
The door key was broken, and he pried open the lock with a knife but found that the door handle was broken, completely cutting off his last hope of escaping the room.
In the next hour, it is undoubtedly the nightmare of the male protagonist, compared with this hour, those just now are like appetizers.
3: The main play
The main drama part is the climactic part of the film, which tells how the male protagonist tries to escape from here.
First of all, he thought of calling for help on the other side, but he did not expect that the occupants of the opposite floor had become himself.
Then, the TV set started and began to play the videotape of his daughter's life, once again destroying the psychological defense line of the male protagonist.
Immediately afterward, there are constantly souls appearing, trying to be liberated by jumping off the building, and the film officially enters the supernatural stage.
Next, the male protagonist saw his father in the hallucination, and the wall began to crack, which made him unable to bear it any longer, and began to consider climbing down the wall from the outside to the next door.
However, after he actually climbed out, he walked for a long time to find that there was no window next door, and even if he left the terrible room, he still could not get rid of the space created from that room.
And the most interesting thing is that this room is not in a hurry to kill the male protagonist, and it even made a small joke with the male protagonist.
This is the location map of the male protagonist before climbing out of the window.
This is the location map presented by the male protagonist after finding that he could not escape and was forced to climb back into the room.
The torture continues, the male protagonist is forced to helpless, open the laptop to ask for help from the ex-girlfriend, here is a detail, the male protagonist is in the position of 2254, adding up to just 13.
Halfway through the call for help, the notebook was suddenly disconnected, and the male owner started the idea of ventilation ducts.
In the middle of climbing the ventilation duct, he suddenly encountered a dry corpse blocking the road, which was also mentioned earlier, the first resident of the Phantom Murder Room, Kevin.
Before the male protagonist had time to think about why this dry corpse would be here, the dry corpse suddenly moved, and the male protagonist, who had thought that the phantom murderer would only rely on hallucinations and fright to interfere, suddenly instigated at this time, and climbed back to the room again in a panic.
And the next plot is very interesting.
After many tortures, the Phantom Man actually released water.
Release water in the physical sense.
From the crooked portrait, a raging sea erupted, flooding the entire room in an instant.
The male protagonist lost his way in the water and lost consciousness. When he woke up, he found himself lying on the beach where he had surfed at the beginning.
The male protagonist who has experienced this painful torture no longer dares to underestimate various supernatural phenomena, he also reconciles with his girlfriend, goes to the nursing home to visit his father, and everything in life seems to be back on track.
And in the period when the male protagonist thought that he had escaped, there was actually a small Easter egg, and the phantom murder simulated all the life of the male protagonist after the male protagonist drowned at the beginning, but it did not simulate the letter "Don't enter 1408!" " letters.
Happiness is always short-lived, and when the man thinks that he has escaped a disaster and that his next life is full of hope, everything around him suddenly collapses, and just for a moment, he returns to the room of 1408.
The sharp contrast between the front and back makes the male protagonist close to madness, and he also sees his daughter in the ruins, and once again feels the feeling of her daughter dying in his arms.
The male protagonist was close to collapse, and when he collapsed on the ground, he inadvertently glimpsed a fully automatic player scattered on the side, and the countdown shown on it had the last four seconds left.
Four seconds, blink of an eye.
As soon as the camera flickered, everything seemed as if it had never happened, the intact room, the intact male protagonist, and the hour just now was like a dream.
Four: The ending
The phone rang, and the man asked, why don't you just kill me? And the reply over there is still interesting.
"Because we respect every guest's choice."
The express check-out service mentioned on the phone does not mean to let the male owner leave, but to let him choose to commit suicide and end all this, otherwise he will continue to repeat the previous hour of horror experience until the male owner can't stand it.
As you can see from this, this phantom room is really skinny, and the room itself doesn't seem to be able to kill guests directly (or maybe it's like a cat catching a mouse that didn't play enough?). Just attack the guest's psychological defense line from all angles until they collapse and commit suicide.
The free check-out packages that this room chooses for guests are also various, which we can see from the introduction of the previous hotel manager, including but not limited to hanging, jumping off the building, self-harm, and even more bizarre drowning, stroke and so on.
I don't know if the male protagonist now thinks of the original scene, will he regret that he arrogantly mocked the manager?
However, the male protagonist is after all a daring hot-blooded man, it is estimated that the room itself did not expect to bite a hard bone this time, the male protagonist in the case of extreme anger, directly copied the bottle of wine sent to him by the manager, after all, this is also the only real thing in the room, simply made a simple incendiary bomb with wine, directly thrown into the middle of the room.
From here, it can be divided into four endings, Xiao Z deliberately went to the Internet to find it, and the four endings are as follows.
Theatrical version: The male protagonist set fire to the room and was rescued by the firefighters, who told his girlfriend that he had seen his daughter. But Lily refused to believe him. Later, the two lived together again, the male protagonist also began to write novels again, once when he was packing his things, he found the tape of that night, which played the dialogue between him and his daughter, the heroine was shocked to hear it, and the movie ended.
Director's cut version: The male protagonist set fire to the room and died in the fire. After the funeral, the hotel manager gave the man's relics to the man's girlfriend, who did not accept to leave. The hotel manager opened the box himself, turned on the tape recorder and heard the conversation between the man and the man's daughter. At the end of the movie, the soul of the male protagonist stays in the charred 1408 to live with his daughter.
Ending three: The male protagonist sets fire to the room and dies in the fire. His publisher owner returned to his office after the funeral, found a package from the man's post office in California, and opened it to see a complete stack of draft novels with the words "1408, by Mike Enslin."
Ending four: This ending is similar to the theatrical version, the difference is that the male protagonist decided not to let his girlfriend know about this matter after hearing the recording.
In these four endings, Xiao Z actually prefers the second one, the male protagonist at the last moment, got rid of the previous selfish image, decided to burn out with this room, and finally lived with the daughter's soul, in a certain sense, it is also a good ending, right?
To tell the truth, as in the previous movie, the male protagonist has a total of five opportunities to escape from the beginning to being locked in the room, but when he is really afraid of wanting to leave, he finds that he can't leave.
First chance: Send a letter
When the male protagonist receives the letter, if he does it according to the letter, or does not pay attention to it at all, there may not be so many things.
Second Chance: Dissuasion from the Hotel Manager
The hotel manager repeatedly dissuaded, and even offered a super high discount, but the male owner just refused to listen.
Third chance: Clutter blocking the way
There are sofas in the corridor, generally speaking, the sofa should be placed against the wall instead of in the middle of the road, but here is a direct block to the man's way. However, the male protagonist was unmoved, and continued to walk around the sofa to death.
Fourth Chance: Elevator
The elevator that automatically opens the door, no one presses the elevator but automatically opens the door, hoping that the male owner can wake up and honestly take the elevator down.
Fifth and final chance: The Repairman
There was a problem with the air conditioning in the male owner's room, he called the repairman to come up to repair, at this time it can be found that the room door is already difficult to open, and the male owner took half a day to unscrew it.
After opening, the repairman at the door is also very taboo about this room, no matter what the male owner says, he will not step into half a step.
After instructing the man to repair the air conditioner, the repairman also hurried away, not even a tip, which can also be seen that he is afraid of this room.
Interestingly, after the end of these five opportunities, the male protagonist closed the room door and drank the whisky sent by the manager, just when the full jukebox next to him played for the second time, the countdown also sounded at this time, which is actually secretly mocking the male protagonist, you have not been out, enjoy the next hour of torture!
This movie is still very interesting personally, I recommend that you can download it when you are fine, the male protagonist's superb acting skills and the game of dialogue with the hotel manager are quite wonderful, by the way, the hotel manager is played by Samuel Jackson, that is, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Avengers.
As for which ending is the best? Maybe everyone feels different, right?