Samuel L. Jackson News Blog @newzblogz.com

John Cusack is not big on genre films, and the only bona-fide thriller on his resume is 2003's "Identity." But when Cusack was sent the script for "1408," about a debunker of the supernatural who checks into a hotel suite where, according to myth, no one checks out alive, Cusack had to rethink his natural bias for two reasons.

First, it was based on a Stephen King short story, and second, it offered the ultimate actor's challenge: Could he hold a screen on his own in a confined space for 94 minutes?

Q. Are you a Stephen King fan?

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Shooter Mark Wahlberg continues his decent run, following up on last year's solid sports hit The Invincible and his Academy Award nomination for The Departed with this tale of an ace sharpshooter framed in a presidential-assassination attempt. Wahlberg plays a former military marksman who has become disillusioned with the government but is lured back into the fold to help scope out the people behind a plot to bump off the commander in chief, only to end up on the lam after he's fingered as the ...

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High School Musical: The Concert The enormously popular Disney Channel movie hits the concert stage as the teen sta

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Great cast and a few scary moments can't save '1408'

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A Stephen King adaptation about a guy alone in a hotel room with some foul presence and a bunch of lost souls sounds like the low-rent version of the author's "The Shining," which had an entire resort hotel in which evil could roam.

Yet "1408" generally survives and thrives on the strength of John Cusack's passionate performance as a skeptic of the supernatural who learns that spooks may be real, plus a spirited supporting role by Samuel L. Jackson and some effective chills by director Mikael Hafstrom and his effects crew.

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