A kind of low - level trickster god of indie cinema himself, Waititi lets his film go a
little crazy: He's outfitted it with garish colors and costumes and set designs, some not - entirely - perfect
special effects, and a synthesized Mark Mothersbaugh score that sounds like it was lifted from an early period Jean - Claude Van Damme
flick.
The one scene he and Cusack have together in the prestige horror
flick 1408 plays like seriomythic garbage - pop poetry: everything's good — the cadence, the words; what I'm saying is that I was well and truly on board with this dumbathon all the way up to the point where Jackson's hotel manager Olin (and as an aside, King has a
special place in my heart for opening The Shining with «Officious
little prick,» referring to a different hotel manager) offers that the titular room in question isn't haunted, it's just an «evil fucking room.»