1408 Analysis & Recap: Molotov Mike

It's currently Mother's Day weekend, so happy Mother's Day to you and yours. Happy Mother's Day to my wife, mother to our four children, and happy Mother's Day to my mom, who once asked me when I was eight years old if I wanted a little brother or sister, and I responded with, hell nah, because I wanted all the toys for myself. But in celebration of this day, let me tell you what's probably my favorite story regarding my mother. And I promise you, this is a true story. So about 14, 15 years ago, we went out to this restaurant called Razzoo's.

If you're in Texas, you know what I'm talking about. It's like a big chain, like a Cajun restaurant. There's like 19 locations in Texas. Apparently, there's one in North Carolina. So if you live next to that one, maybe you know what I'm talking about too. But we went out. It's me, my mom, my cousins, my aunts. It's the whole family, right? And we... order like this hella sugary cocktail, like a big bowl. It's like a gator punch bowl or swamp bowl, some shit like that. My mom is a hella lightweight, like the lightest of the lightweight.

So after about three sips, she was completely trashed. So we finished things up, go outside and she's like, I have to go to the bathroom, but we're all like feeling buzzed or, you know, tipsy, maybe a little bit drunk, some of us. I, like, pick her up and, like, squeeze her or something, like, just, like, playing around, horseplay. And a little bit of pee comes out. And she's like, oh, my goodness, I told you I had to pee. Why'd you do that? And I was like, oh, shit, my bad. We're laughing, whatever.

But my cousin, Tee, apparently laughed a little bit too hard, so my mom starts chasing him around. And, like, this Razzoo's is located in the middle of this outdoor kind of mall setup. And so there's a lot of space to run. And he's trying to, like, dodge back and forth, trying to juke her and shit. And he ends up juking himself and he slips and falls on the ground. And she pounces, bro. She sits right on his chest and proceeds to pee a little bit more. And so he's like, hey, are you peeing on me?

And she just gets up and just runs away giggling. And there's like a wet spot on his chest. So that is my mother. And if you ever wondered where my unhinged commentary came from, well, now I guess you have a little bit of an idea. So happy Mother's Day, mom. Love you. Thanks for letting me keep all the toys to myself. But anyway, I'm Brandon O. This is Terrorific, and we're chopping up 2007's 1408.

Welcome back to the place where it's perpetually spooky season. This is your first time here. This season is all about breaking down the horror film adaptations of my personal favorite author, the horror goat himself, Stephen King. Be sure you're following at Terrific Podcast on IG because leading up to each new episode, I'm posting a response box on my story for you to guess what movie that episode will cover. And if you guess correctly, I'll shout you out by name in that episode. Now, the hint for this episode was aquatic mammal, which was a reference to the name of the hotel in 1408, the Dolphin Hotel.

Now, guesses that I got back were quite varied. They included things like the Creepshow 2 segment, The Raft, which I had never even heard of. So y 'all apparently need to take over for me because I'm slacking on my Stephen King knowledge. Other responses were Tusk. Dangerous Animals, The Meg, Orca, Shark Tales, and Godzilla. I'm pretty sure none of these relate to Stephen King, but maybe that's my fault for not reminding people about the theme for this season. But also we may need a little bit of a refresher on what constitutes a mammal because Godzilla and sharks, uh, I don't think they qualify.

as mammals but anyway after i got these responses back i was like all right i need to have like a second hint so this time i said the aquatic mammal is not an actual animal i also had to remind folks that we are talking about stephen king adaptations here because clearly we went off the rails a little bit so this next batch of responses included the mist it bag of bones and secret window So, you know, kind of getting a little bit closer, especially that secret window guess. I mean, we have like an isolated author type of shit, pretty similar to 1408 in some regard.

And I guess a lot of Stephen King characters do involve like isolated authors doing crazy shit. But I then provided a third hint, which was a dolphin emoji and a hotel bell emoji. And from this, we did get a correct guess. So shout out to Kat, host of the Call Her Kat podcast for guessing correctly with 1408. And Kat's latest episode of her podcast is titled From Firefighter to Healer, Rewiring Trauma and Purpose, where she interviews Ashley Dillard, a former firefighter and paramedic turned licensed counselor, hypnotherapist and podcast host.

All about her journey out of emergency services and into trauma -informed care for first responders, military members, and families. Wow, that sounds like some really meaningful and impactful work. Respect. Meanwhile, I'm over here doing things like making jokes about some murderous magician's demonic cloak having a taste for cream pies. But we all have our roles to play. And I wouldn't normally do this, but since it is Mother's Day weekend, I will acknowledge that my mother is very determined to get her shout out.

So she's always submitting guesses and she's always very wrong, but she tries so hard. She really, really wants that shout out. So Pet Cemetery is like her constant guess. And eventually it's going to be right. Maybe. Wink, wink. But I'll give her a shout out anyway. I had to give her some extra clues. I think I told her Dolphin Hotel like straight up eventually. And so she went to Google and then found out that it was 1408 I was talking about. So, you know, not exactly the most legitimate guess here, but I'll give you a shout out anyway.

So congrats, mom. You made it. And keep guessing Pet Sematary, OK? Eventually, you know, even a stop clock. is right twice per day. But let's get to it. So 1408 is based on Stephen King's short story of the same name, first published in the 1999 audiobook Blood and Smoke. Later in 2002, it was published in written form in Everything's Eventual, which is a collection of 11 short stories and three novellas. And I think I mentioned in the first episode of this season that Everything's Eventual was one of the first works of Stephen King that I read as a youngster.

Maybe even the first. So because of that, I knew I definitely wanted to talk about 1408 at some point this season. Because it was a good ass story. But how does the adaptation compare? So the film was directed by Mikael Hofstrom, whose horror credits also include 2011's The Right, starring Anthony Hopkins as an exorcist. 1408's screenplay was written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, and Larry... Karaszewski. Greenberg's horror writing credits include 2002's Reign of Fire. I don't know if this counts as horror, but to me, dragons are pretty fucking scary, so I'm going to count it.

As well as 2019's Pet Sematary. Alexander and Karaszewski are frequent collaborators, mostly outside of the horror space, but Alexander does have a writing credit on The Trap, which is a 1991 anthology segment in Tales from the Crypt. 1408 stars John Cusack as Mike Inslin, with Samuel L. Jackson as Gerald Olin, and Mary McCormack as Lily Inslin being the main supporting roles. At the box office, the film grossed $132 million worldwide against a budget of $25 million, so relatively successful. It holds an average rating of 3 .2 on Letterboxd, and I rated it a 2 .5 myself.

I liked it more when I first watched it, you know, damn near 20 years ago. But like visually, things didn't really age the best. But the film opens with Mike driving in his car through a torrential downpour, eventually arriving at an inn that's supposedly haunted. And he decides to stay the night in the room with the most reported paranormal activity. So Mike is an author. who goes around staying in haunted locations in an effort to prove the existence of ghosts, spirits, the afterlife, etc. Well, Bro is about to fuck around and find out, but first he goes to a book signing event, and he's the author of these best -selling ghost survival guides, so 10 Haunted Hotels, 10 Haunted Graveyards, 10 Haunted Lighthouses are some of his previous titles.

But most importantly, he is a skeptic. He says he's never seen a ghost and thinks they're a cheap tactic desperate hotels use when bookings begin to decline. And as he says this during this book signing, people are just kind of like, uh, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? But he also says that he wants to see one so he could have proof there's an afterlife. And as he says this, there's kind of like this. morose kind of feeling or tone to his body language and and face but one of the fans brings a copy of mike's first book the long road home for him to sign and ask if he'll write something like it again and he says no that was a different guy now he's all jaded and cynical and shit And this fan mentions the relationship between the father and son in the novel and how it feels so authentic.

She asks Mike if it's true and he says no, but he doesn't really give the vibe that he's being completely truthful when he says that. Mike returns to his home in LA, ends up going surfing. He lives like beachside, which, you know, perks of being an author, I guess. And he's sitting on his board and he looks up at a plane that's pulling an ad banner and he's distracted and ends up getting smacked by this big ass wave. And he gets submerged and eventually washes up on shore, coughing up water like.

no one pulls him out of the water i want to emphasize that fact he just washes up on shore on his own and that's when fellow beachgoers run up to him and be like hey are you all right mister so just keep that little tidbit in mind but nearly drowning is apparently no big deal because mike just continues on his merry way starts to run some errands goes to the post office to check his mail And he's received a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in NYC. It's not addressed from anyone, no signature. All it does is warn him to not enter room 1408.

He writes a note to himself on the postcard saying that the digits in 1408 add up to the number 13, which of course in folklore and superstition is a highly unlucky and ominous number. Mike calls the Dolphin to reserve 1408 and he's told the room is unavailable. But Mike's like, wait, I didn't even say which date. And he proceeds to rattle off times like that weekend, unavailable, next week, unavailable, next month, unavailable, and even next summer, which also is unavailable. And eventually the front desk person just hangs up the phone.

So Mike does not. want to take no for an answer so he's ignoring various red flags such as the fact that he got a random postcard in the mail telling him not to enter a place and all he wants to do is enter that place. Interesting decision making here Mike. He begins conducting research and it turns up news articles of multiple suicides occurring inside of 1408 dating all the way back to the 1930s. And as always, if you or anyone you know is struggling with thoughts of self -harm or suicide, please call or text 988.

You are not alone. You do not have to suffer in silence. Please talk to somebody. Please reach out for help. Mike calls his publisher, who's played by Tony Shalhoub, to assist with circumventing the uncooperative front desk booking agent person, whatever. And the publishing company's in -house counsel found some federal civil rights law that says if the room isn't occupied, they have to let him stay in it or they have grounds for litigation. So the publisher asked Mike if he's sure he wants to go to the hotel.

Quote unquote, given everything that happened. And he also asked if Mike's going to visit someone named Lily or tell her that he's in the city. And Mike says no, because he doesn't want to impose. So Mike arrives at the Dolphin to check in and his reservation has a message on it saying to alert management before checking the guest in. And so manager Gerald Olin pulls up, who was played by Samuel L. Jackson with hair. Very jarring visual here as a bald man myself seeing my fellow bald brethren with the full head of hair.

I was like, yo, traitor. But he comes up to greet Mike and he tries to bribe him with like Knicks tickets and other shit. Even a free upgrade to the penthouse suite with the condition that Mike does not stay in 1408. But Mike is insistent. So they head to Olin's office for a private chat. And there Olin tries to bribe him again, this time with an $800 bottle of whiskey. Bro, imagine being offered Knicks tickets, probably Broadway tickets, a free penthouse upgrade in the middle of downtown New York City, plus an $800 bottle of premium whiskey.

All in exchange for not staying in a haunted hotel room. Bro, I would not stay in a haunted hotel room for free. But Mike apparently is built differently because he says he plans to stay overnight per usual. And Olin tells him that no one has ever lasted longer than one single hour. During Olin's time as manager, there have been four deaths in 1408. After the last one, he forbade any guests from booking 1408 ever again. But Mike's aware of these four deaths, knowledge that he acquired during his research.

So the last person was a manic depressive orthodontist who apparently slit his wrist and turned himself into a eunuch. A .K .A. he cut off his own balls. Wow. And Mike recounts Ballas Bobby's tale all flippantly. He's clearly not taking it that seriously, not really buying that that has anything to do with any kind of ghostly or paranormal activity. And so Olin's like, all right, but how about a little bit more? In the 95 years of the Dolphin Hotel's operation, it's seen seven jumpers, five hangings, four ODs, three mutilations.

and two stranglings what kind of fucked up 12 days of christmas is this bullshit but mike again knowing all this through his research continues to act flippantly and dismissively and that's when olin's like okay but what about the 22 natural deaths that have occurred in 1408 and mike's like uh Natural deaths? This is news to him. And Olin's like, yeah, that's right, bitch, because the papers don't run those boring ass stories. They only want the sensationalism. And so that brings the total death count in 1408 up to 56 people.

And these causes of these natural deaths include heart attack, stroke, and even someone who drowned in a bowl of chicken noodle soup. dog dog death by campbell's is crazy and it's even crazier that this wasn't enough to deter mike so olin's final offer is to give mike access to all files in the history of 1408 to put into his book again just on the condition that he does not stay in the room so he'll get access to photos from the scenes like coroner's records plus still like the nicks tickets the penthouse suite upgrade and the 800 bottle of whiskey and mike is insistent still so olin gives him the files anyway in hopes they'll scare him into not staying and this shit is like grisly bro like one of the victims slit his own throat then tried to stitch it back together with the sewing needle before he bled out mike is looking at photos of this occurrence this this aftermath he's looking at photos of other just macabre happenings to people and it's still not enough to turn him off from staying in this room which really drives home the point that mike's internal motivation is based on what has to be desperation and it's desperation that seems to be driven by something that's not you know tied to money or financial rewards it seems to be powered by grief because he seems depressed he seems just like he's kind of going through

the motions of life and this kind of depression this kind of grief you know who did he lose and all then mentions that he's read some of mike's work and calls it the cynicism of an intelligent and talented man who doesn't believe in anything or anyone but himself He mentions in Long Road Home and how the father was a real bastard. So at this point, I was thinking that Mike is the dad in this book. And so whatever the relationship between the father and the son was, and that the father was a bastard, maybe if the son ended up passing somehow, Mike is now living with this regret.

and guilt and he is desperate to find proof of the afterlife in hopes that he can communicate with his son and apologize for whatever took place between them but mike confirms olin's diagnosis of him he is indeed a man who doesn't believe in anything or anyone He confirms that he's an atheist, saying that if ghosts and ghouls did exist, there's no God to protect us from them. Olin finally relents and gives Mike the key to 1408. And they hop in the elevator to head on up to the room. Mike comments on the key's appearance.

It's not a card. It's like an antique legitimate key. And Olin says that's because the electronics, including room card readers, do not work in room 1408. Olin also mentions that the hotel's owners were superstitious about having a 13th floor so they don't list it. So as they go up in the elevator we see it going from floor 12 to floor 14. So 1408 whose digits add up to the number 13 is in reality on the 13th floor. So it's ominous all around bro. But Mike is concerned about the rooms. condition he thinks it might be unkempt but olin's like yo bro like don't offend me here we are professionals at the end of the day So once a month, they give the room a light turn.

Olin supervises and the maids work in pairs, but only for 10 minutes in and out with the door left open. Because a few years ago, a maid got locked in the bathroom for a few moments. And during that time, she took a pair of scissors and gouged her eyes out while laughing hysterically. But I guess Mike's eyeballs come equipped with like. scissor repellent or some shit because he's like, fuck it, bro, YOLO, and steps off the elevator to head towards the room. And he looks back and notices that Olin is still on the elevator because Olin is smart.

He tells him that he does not go any further beyond this point when it comes to 1408, which does beg the question. How exactly is he supervising these monthly light turns if he never leaves the elevator? Because Mike has to like walk around the corner and all this shit to get to the room. Anyway, he takes that trusty bottle of $800 whiskey and it's like, all right, I'm gonna set up shop. And as he's about to enter his room, he sees a woman pushing a like an old school stroller into the room next door.

And this seemingly minor detail will come into play. later but once inside the room things seem hella ordinary just looks like a regular hotel suite mike pulls out a bible from the bedside nightstand and casually thumbs through a few pages and the camera lingers on a couple of these pages for like one second so i paused it to look more closely at it and these passages are samuel chapter 2 verses 11 and 12. Mike tosses the bible back into the nightstand drawer and when he does the letters on the cover appear to be inverted.

Mike then makes an offhand comment while speaking into his tape recorder about the dull paintings in the room and suggests that their poor quality means that he's in the seventh circle of hell. Now I have a theory about what all of this means but it requires full context of the plot to properly explain so we'll come back to it at the end. Mike goes to look out the window in the room and the clock radio by the bed cuts on by itself and the song that's playing is the Carpenters We've Only Just Begun and it sounds creepy as fuck.

Not only that, there are also a couple of chocolates now sitting on the pillow and Mike thinks that someone must be in the room pranking him so he searches in the closet, the bathroom, etc. And he doesn't find anyone, but he does see that the toilet paper roll has been folded all nicely like a little bow is in the paper. And it's also abnormally hot in this room. Like this man is sweating, bro. The thermostat is appears to be broken and it's stuck at 80 and climbing. So he calls down to the front desk to have them send someone to fix it.

So while he waits for someone to arrive, he walks around the room with the black light and it lights up like Christmas. There are bloodstains everywhere. And there's like every time he finds a new bloodstain, they like briefly flash a prior victim in that spot and show, you know, how they died or whatever. So that was a pretty neat little touch. Pretty creepy. Not long afterwards, someone shows up to fix the thermostat, and this person is played by Isaiah Whitlock Jr., R .I .P., best known for playing Senator Clay Davis on the show The Wire.

And his iconic line is, which I still say to this day, both vocally and textually. This engineer refuses to enter the room. He instructs Mike how to fix it from the threshold. Mike completes the repair, which was as simple as just like taking the faceplate off the thermostat and knocking the little mercury tube inside. And so he turns to thank the engineer and give him a tip and notices that he's just gone without a word or without a trace. Mike even goes out into the hallway to try to see him like walking away and no one's there.

So question is, was this person a ghost? Mike pours himself a glass of that $800 bottle of whiskey that Olin gave him and climbs into bed with his shoes. on bro and this is completely unhinged diabolical behavior i don't care if you're staying in a hotel and the bed is not technically yours having shoes anywhere close to where you're going to be sleeping is crazy behavior but as he lays there the clock radio turns on by itself again playing that same song and mike spills his drink all over the place so not only does he have these crusty ass shoes and all the dog turds and puddles that he walked through in nyc for the day in his bed now he also has whiskey just a whole mess all around i need you to be better mike but the time on the clock radio changes to a timer that counts down from an hour while the song we've only just begun continues to ominously play in really underlining what's about to happen.

So first Mike goes back over to the window to take another peek outside and as he's gazing down at the street below something behind him Mike gets his attention so he turns around and he's like holding on to the windowsill so it shuts on his hand and cuts it pretty badly. So he goes to the bathroom to rinse off all the blood in the sink and while he's doing so it suddenly changes to this high pressured scalding hot water. And as he nurses these burns, the clock radio starts playing its song again.

We've only just begun. And Mike rips the plug out of the wall and the music stops, but the timer keeps going. So now Mike's kind of like, OK, maybe it's time to get the fuck out of here. So he goes over to the door, puts the key into the lock, but it breaks off and then it gets sucked into the keyhole. Pretty awkward. Mike looks through the peephole and sees an eye looking back at him. What the fuck? No, thank you. He goes back to the window to yell for help at the passersby down on the street and bro tosses a lamp out of the window to get their attention.

That seems a little bit extreme there, buddy. Like hella dangerous. So Mike is trying to rationalize all that's happening right now. And he lands on the theory that Olin drugged him with that $800 bottle of booze and or the chocolate that was left on his pillow. So he's like, OK, I'm cool. I just need to ride this out. But then the TV turns on by itself and it's playing old home movies of Mike with his wife, Lily, and their daughter, Katie. who looks like she's maybe about 10 years old. But the psychological assault does not end there.

Mike then starts seeing ghosts of the previous occupants of the room jumping out of the window. He hears the baby next door crying at a crazy loud level. The volume increases to like deafening levels until he throws a chair at the wall to cease everything. He then walks over to the bathroom and the bathroom is like changed to kind of a hospital room style of bathroom. And he sees his dad there. He's sitting in a wheelchair talking to himself when he turns to Mike and tells him, as you are, I was, as I am, you will be.

So at this point in the movie, we're still trying to put the pieces together. But based on this interaction or this hallucination of. mike's dad it seems like he has a fear of becoming his father so his first book the long road home with that relationship between the father and son and the father being a real bastard maybe it isn't actually about mike and his kid maybe mike is the child and his father was the bastard and now he's afraid of becoming him as he grows older especially since To this point in the movie, we've only seen Mike by himself.

He doesn't appear to have a wife and child currently. So where are they? How did things end? Was it divorce or what? We're not quite sure. But based on the profound look of sadness that appeared on Mike's face whenever he was watching the home movie with Lily and Katie, whatever went down had to have been pretty bad. And all this stuff has Mike's psyche really teetering on the edge. He begins to question reality and he wonders if he's just having an incredibly vivid nightmare. And as he's thinking about this, the wall begins to crack open and starts leaking this like doo -doo looking fluid out of it.

And this motherfucker Mike touches it, bro. There is no way in hell. I'd be touching some mysterious doo -doo water. Like, that is insane. And in addition to just being gross, it's also not smart. I mean, this dude has a big -ass open wound on his hand from when the window came and sliced it open, so why are you going to be fondling this fecal fountain, bro? That is an infection waiting to happen. But then Mike gets the bright idea that he could probably reach the room next door if he walks outside the building on the ledge.

Before he ventures out, he counts the number of steps from his room's window over to the wall. So once he gets outside on the ledge and begins to shimmy across, you know, looking down as he's 13 floors up and... It's pretty nerve wracking stuff. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am deathly, deathly afraid of heights. So this scene had me stressing, bro. Absolutely stressing. But Mike hits that number that he counted on the inside. And when he does, he doesn't see a window. No, he just sees more ledge that seems to stretch on endlessly.

So he turns around and heads back towards his own window in 1408. And as he makes it back, there is the specter of a woman who was there waiting for him and takes a swipe at him like a jump scare. And this causes him to lurch backwards and he narrowly avoids plummeting to the ground because he grabs onto the ledge at the last second. The ghost lady then climbs out of the window and takes a swan dive so he's seen another prior victim meet her grisly end. The window then starts closing so he scrambles up quickly and climbs through at the very last second before it slams shut so this whole window ledge adventure doesn't seem like it's going to be happening again.

Mike goes over to the peephole to take another look and this time he sees a brick wall. He sees brick outside of the window that he just climbed through now too. So 1408 is making a very strong effort to keep Mike confined because it has more fucked up shit to show him. So the room changes scenery again. This time Mike sees himself and Lily in a doctor's office crying. And there's an intercom message saying, you know, paging someone in oncology. And they're talking about how they can get another opinion.

And then someone asked, what kind of God would do this to a little girl? Then it cuts to Katie laying in a hospital bed. So we can intimate that Katie has been diagnosed with some form of cancer. And although there still may be some details missing, this pretty much gives us all we need to assemble the overall picture. Mike is an atheist because his daughter passed away from cancer. Mike spends his time ghost hunting, hoping to find proof of spirits and or the afterlife in order to reassure himself that maybe there's a chance he can contact or see Katie.

again. And that my friend is some pretty heartbreaking shit but Mike can't afford to dwell on the pain of loss because he still has to contend with all that 1408 is throwing at him. So now the thermostat moves the other way and the room gets freezing cold. Mike tries his cell phone and it has no signal so he pulls his laptop out of his bag and he is able to get a feeble connection. He video calls Lily and she's like Mike, is that you? What? Because they haven't spoken in a year. He's trying to tell her that he's in danger and needs help.

He tells her to call the cops and send them to the Dolphin Hotel. And she's like, wait, what the fuck? Like you're in the city. You didn't say anything. And she's upset. She says that he just walked out and left her, didn't divorce her or anything. She doesn't know what they are. They separated or what? And now suddenly that he needs something and needs her. He wants to call out of the blue. Mike's next escape plan is to attempt to make it to the room next door by crawling through the air duct in the ceiling.

And as he makes his way through the duct, he is like above the next room and he's peering down and sees the lady in there with her baby. And she creepily looks up at him, revealing herself to be just a younger version of Lily holding baby Katie. So Mike's like, all right. Fuck this and I'm going to go somewhere else. He keeps crawling until he's attacked by like this dusty ass ghoul behind him. It like grabs his ankle. So he turns and kicks it in the face and it kicks its jaw off and its head. And this causes Mike to fall through the ceiling and come crashing back down into 1408.

And this dude really needs a drink at this point. So he goes over to the mini fridge, opens it up and sees a miniature Olin in there. And now the fridge is like his office in tiny form. So he lectures Mike on how he's destroying people's hope by not believing in anything. He says that people want to believe in ghosts because they want a prospect of something existing after death. And the unspoken part about this statement is that Mike himself wants to believe that there's something that exists after death.

He's destroying other people's hope because his own hope has been destroyed. Plus, I think this scene also raises the question, is this mini version of Olin just a projection of Room 1408? Or is Olin somehow actually involved in or controlling all of this stuff that's happening to Mike? But desperate to try anything now, Mike grabs the Bible again from the nightstand and opens it only to see nothing but blank pages. And this cues the next flashback. We see Mike and Lily at home with Katie. They've set her up with like home palliative care.

So she's lying in bed with all of her monitors and machines. Lily is sitting in bed with Katie and they're looking at a Bible that's purple for some reason. Katie asked why it's purple and Lily says she doesn't know. It was a wedding present from her grandmother who brought it back from Hungary. And she tells Katie that someday it'll be hers. But as soon as the words leave her mouth, she gets this sad look on her face as she realizes Katie's not going to have that chance. So Katie asked if there are people where she's going, which sparks this whole existential conversation about if God will be in the next place.

Mike tells her that, yes, God will be there. And Katie asked if he really believes that. And Mike says yes again. But this leads to regret as the scene then cuts to an argument between Mike and Lily after Katie has passed away. He's lashing out like kicking shit in the room because he thinks they should have done more to help Katie fight instead of reassuring her so much about heaven and all that stuff. So in addition to the regret, Mike must be feeling like a shit ton of guilt as well because he flat out lied to his daughter on what's essentially her deathbed.

He was trying to make her feel comfortable and secure and whatnot, which, of course, is the right thing to do for your child as a parent. But a lie is a lie, or at least what he thinks to be a lie. And so now he wants to desperately be proven wrong. He wants there to be a heaven. He wants there to be a God. He doesn't want Katie. To just be in the ground somewhere or just floating in some empty void for all of eternity. However, as Mike ponders all of this, he now finds himself covered in snow. The temp in the room on the thermostat is below zero.

So Mike builds a fire from broken chair legs and other pieces of furniture and huddles up under some blankets that he pulled from the bed. But he's hella frosty. And he hears Lily's voice coming from the laptop again. So he crawls over and she tells him that she's been trying to reach him. She ended up calling the cops and they're in 1408, but they're saying that the room is completely empty. So Mike is feeling hella defeated now and he's resigned to his fate. But Lily tells him that she can be there in 15 minutes.

He turns to look at the clock radio behind him and it reads like 14 minutes and some change. So he's like, nah, don't come by the time you get here. It'll be too late. But before he can close the laptop, a doppelganger of himself pops up on screen and begins speaking to Lily. And doppelganger Mike has mad game, bro. Like he was smooth with it. He's like, yeah, come pull up, girl. I need you, girl. You're someone I could always count on. Just come straight to my room and let's talk about things. We can talk about what happened between us.

We can talk about what happened with Katie. And Lily's like, sploosh. Oh my goodness. I missed you too. I'll be right there. And then she steps over the puddle at her feet and heads that way. Doppelganger Mike then like winks at real Mike like a complete savage. And then the room starts to crumble and like a thunderstorm is occurring and all the artwork on the wall turns evil looking with people like screaming in agony and all this crazy looking shit. And there's a painting of a boat that's sailing and the painting ruptures and ends up flooding the entire room.

Mike sinks and is about to drown before a wave comes and washes him onto shore. and he's back on the beach from the scene that occurred earlier in the film. Mike passes out and wakes up in the hospital with Lily standing bedside. He thinks they're in NYC, but she tells him, no, you're in LA. The hospital called her since she's still listed as his next of kin, so she flew in. He tells her all about 1408, but they chalk it up to head trauma from his surfing accident. He gets discharged and they go back to the shore to get his car.

And she asked him why he left. And he tells her that he left because every time he looked at her, he saw Katie's face. And this starts up their road to reconciliation. They go to dinner. They're analyzing his 1408 dream. And they kind of flirt a little bit before Lily seemingly a little bit reluctantly shuts it down. This dude Mike is like feeling revitalized though. He like cranks out his next manuscript. He goes to the post office to mail it. But he recognizes the desk guy and some other like maintenance crew nearby as hotel staff from the Dolphin.

And that's when he realizes that he's still in the room. The maintenance crew then starts demolishing the place. and reveals portions of 1408 and now all that's done he's back in 1408 completely and the room is somehow burnt to a crisp so mike is completely losing his shit he thought he was out clearly he isn't and so now he really can't trust what's real then he sees katie begin walking towards him through these burnt out ruins. Her feet are all bloody from walking barefoot over these splintered beams and whatnot.

And Mike himself was bleeding from his ears and his nose. But Katie is like, Daddy, I missed you. I hope you can stay. I wish you could stay. You, me, and mommy, let's be together forever. And Mike's like, we can be, honey. And they embrace. And then she sadly collapses in his arms, seemingly dead. At this point, the clock radio cuts on again, which startles Mike into squeezing Katie's body and it crumbles into ash. Man says, fuck it and starts destroying the room. But the clock's timer hits zero and he wakes up back again on the floor of 1408 with everything seemingly how it was at the beginning.

The clock then resets to 60 minutes and starts counting down again. Mike is sitting by the window just looking completely defeated, but also a little contemplative when the phone rings. And he asks, yo, why don't you just kill me? And the voice on the other end says, all guests have free will. Choose to relive this hour over and over again or take advantage of the express checkout option. mike then walks around and sees nooses hanging in the bedroom and bathroom and holy moly that is some dark ass shit the front desk voice on the phone then tells mike that lily will be there in five minutes and he's like nah we're not about to do all that so apparently seeing the burnt out version of 1408 like inceptioned mike because he grabs that 800 bottle of whiskey And he makes a Molotov cocktail out of it and decides to take 1408 down with him.

Throws that shit. Fire breaks out. And then Mike's like, adios, motherfucker. And he breaks like the big window to the room, which causes the fire to really erupt. And he's ready to go. But then the fire department breaks down the door and rescues him. In the aftermath of all of this, Mike has suffered some burn damage and he has to use a cane to get around, but he and Lily have successfully reconciled and they're in the process of moving out of their home. She brings over a box with stuff in it that was recovered from the fire and she wants to toss it, but Mike takes one thing out of it first, his tape recorder.

He presses play and we hear some of his, you know, early observations about the room. Then he fast forwards a little bit. And it plays back that final scene whenever he was in the burnt out ruins of 1408 when Katie's specter appeared. And her voice is clear as day on the tape saying, you know, mommy and daddy, I want us to stay together forever, blah, blah, blah. And Lily hears this and she's like, yo, and it's like drops her box and can't even move. And it's just completely stunned. And Mike just looks at her and kind of smiles softly.

end movie roll credits and this was the theatrical ending apparently there are three alternate endings as well but i'm not going down that rabbit hole so if you want to by all means feel free and if you do let me know what they were like and how they compare to this one but based on the theatrical ending i think the overall kind of theme of this film is how one navigates grief the hotel room itself represents like these basically jail cell being trapped in your grief having to be confronted with these feelings and emotions that mike or anyone was trying to run away from and not trying to accept There is no way around grief.

The only way to overcome it is to go through it. And Mike was able to do that. Came out on the other side. Got his wife back. And they found peace knowing that their daughter is out there somewhere. And maybe they'll see her again when the time comes. Yay. I think that's a great optimistic outlook to have. But Mike wasn't exactly an optimist, was he? He was very cynical. And a cynic is nothing but a disappointed optimist. So let's talk about theories that aren't quite so happy. So first theory, Mike was dead for the vast majority of the movie.

He actually died in the surfing accident. So recall whenever he washed up on shore, nobody like pulled him out. He just happened to come up on shore. I think the odds of that happening and surviving are pretty low. Furthermore, I think the Dolphin Hotel and more specifically Room 1408 serve as the gates of hell. So when Mike first entered the room and pulled out the Bible from the nightstand and, you know, casually thumbed through those few pages and tossed it aside, when the letters were inverted, I think this symbolized his entry into hell.

But why would Mike be in hell? So those pages in the Bible that were visible, they were showing Samuel chapter 2 verses 11 and 12. So the summary of verse 11 is that King David, he's hanging out in Jerusalem while his army is at war, and he sees the wife of one of his soldiers, Bathsheba, bathing. So he sends his aides to go fetch her and uses his power as king to sleep with her. Real shady shit, which this results in Bathsheba becoming pregnant. Now Bathsheba's husband Uriah was out on the front lines, so David calls him home.

in hopes that he'll sleep with Bathsheba, therefore believing that the baby is his. But Uriah apparently had something that David didn't, which was honor, so he couldn't bring himself to sleep comfortably at home while getting it in, while his homies were out on the battlefield, so he refuses to stay at his house. So David then has to call an audible and he orders his army commander to send Uriah to the most dangerous part of the battlefield and then retreat, which results in Uriah's death. This was all a plot to murder him in an effort to cover up the adultery.

After the acceptable mourning period passes, David then married Bathsheba, but the chapter ends by saying that these actions were viewed as evil. In the eyes of God. Which brings us then to chapter 12. In that one, David is confronted by Nathan the prophet about this whole situation. And Nathan tells David a parable about a rich man stealing a poor man's prized lamb. And holier than thou, David is like, yo, that dude definitely deserves death. And Nathan is like, bro, but that dude is you. So David confesses his sin and Nathan tells him that God will forgive him and take away his sin but that the child born from the affair will die.

The child falls ill and dies after a week or so. That brings me to the theory that Mike and Lily's relationship was initially an affair and Katie was the result. And she contracted cancer and died as punishment for their sins. Mr. New York Times bestseller, a .k .a. King Mike. But while King David was pious and stayed committed to God after the death of the child, Mike, however, reacted by ceasing to believe in God. And that is why he was sent to hell after he died. Which brings me to my next theory.

Initially, I was thinking Olin was the devil because there were those notes on Mike's account saying that before anyone checks into 1408, please check with the manager first. But now that I think about it, I think Olin actually may have been God. So whenever they went to his office and Olin was trying to convince Mike to not stay in 1408. I think this was his like final test to be like, demonstrate your faith in me. Show me that you trust my word and listen to what I'm asking you to do. And if so, I will grant you passage into my eternal kingdom.

But since Mike declined or continued to not believe in God, he was then banished to hell or he didn't have a chance to alter his fate. However you want to look at it. And my final theory is that Mike's surfing accident wasn't really an accident. I think Mike may have died by suicide. So whenever Mike was walking around 1408 and he made that offhand comment speaking into his tape recorder about how the dull paintings in the room suggested that he was in the seventh circle of hell. Well, what is the seventh circle of hell exactly?

Dante's Inferno depicts the seventh circle of hell as the circle of violence, where souls who committed violent acts were punished in one of three rings. There were those who committed violence against others, those who committed violence against themselves, and those who committed violence against God, nature, or art. So on the surface, I think Mike's comment about this being the seventh circle of hell was him being an asshole. saying that these painters committed violence against art. And I think this also alludes to violence against self though.

So Mike's whole shtick was trying to find evidence of ghosts so he could believe his daughter was somewhere in the afterlife. I think he got tired of waiting for this proof, therefore reaching the conclusion that the quickest way for him to get his answer would be to cause his own death. But that would be some bleak ass shit. So let's hope I'm completely wrong. And in reality, Mike and Lily did live happily ever after, relatively speaking. And yeah, that he's not trapped in hell for all of eternity.

Because that sounds like it would probably suck. But that's all for me. I'm out of here. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite. podcast listening platform especially if that favorite podcast listening platform happens to be spotify or apple i'll see you in two weeks for the next stephen king adaptation but in the meantime remember always keep it spooky

1408 Analysis & Recap: Molotov Mike

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