Plot
Mike Enslin is a cynical and skeptical author of niche books about supernatural events, in which he has no belief. While promoting his latest book in Hermosa Beach, California, he receives an anonymous postcard depicting The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City, bearing the message: "Don't enter 1408." Viewing this as a challenge, Mike travels to The Dolphin and requests room 1408. The hotel manager, Gerald Olin, attempts to discourage him. He explains to Mike that in the last 95 years, no one has lasted more than an hour inside of 1408; the latest count is 56 deaths. Olin repeatedly and impassionately attempts to dissuade and bribe Mike, but at Mike's insistence and threat of legal action against the hotel, preparations are reluctantly made.
While Mike describes the room's ordinary appearance and absence of supernatural behavior on his mini-cassette recorder as the "banality of evil", the clock radio suddenly starts playing "We've Only Just Begun", and the digital display changes to a countdown starting from 60:00. Mike begins to see ghosts of the room's past victims, along with flashbacks of his deceased daughter Katie and his terminally ill father. Mike makes numerous attempts to leave the room, all in vain. Mike uses his laptop to contact his estranged wife Lily and ask for help. The room activates the sprinkler system, short-circuiting the laptop, which starts to work again when the temperature drops to subzero. A doppelgänger of Mike appears in a video chat window, urging Lily to come to the hotel room.
The room starts to shake violently, causing Mike to crash into a picture of a ship in a storm, from which water floods the room. He finds himself reliving a surfing accident from before he entered the room. Recovering in the hospital, he reconciles with Lily and assumes his experience in 1408 was just a nightmare; Lily encourages him to write a book about it. When visiting the post office to send the manuscript to his publisher, he recognizes members of a construction crew as Dolphin Hotel staff, who start destroying the walls, revealing that Mike is still trapped inside 1408. Katie's ghost confronts him, and when the countdown ends, the room restores itself and the clock radio resets to 60:00.
A voice that sounds like a female hotel operator calls Mike on the room phone. Mike asks why he has not been killed and she informs him that guests enjoy free will: he can either relive the past hour over and over again, or use their "express checkout system". A hangman's noose appears, but he refuses to give in. The voice call once again, threatening that even if he escapes, he will never leave. Mike tells them to not send his wife to the room, hanging up as the phone begins to melt. Mike improvises a Molotov cocktail and sets the room on fire. He then lies down and laughs in victory upon destroying the room. The hotel is evacuated and Olin, in his office, praises Mike for his actions.
Mike is rescued from the room by firefighters and he reconciles with Lily, though she is skeptical of his experience. She finds a box of Mike's possessions that were rescued from 1408 and Mike takes the damaged mini-cassette recorder from it. He briefly tampers with the recorder, making it work again. Suddenly, they both hear Katie's voice coming from it, confirming Mike's account.
