ongoing

 Hot Rails to Hell. Not only is it the title of a great Blue Oyster Cult song, it's the journey John Cusack's takes when he checks into room 1408 in Manhattan's Dolphin Hotel. Cusack writes about haunted houses and the like, but he's a non-believer - in much of anything, especially since his young child died and he left his wife. He's at the hotel to write about a room that the hotel won't ever rent because mayhem and murder tended to greet the occupants back in the day. Cusack wrangles his way in past manager Samuel L. Jackson. Not a good move. But this movie is based on a Stephen King short story, so we knew that. And we suspected, correctly, that Cusack's private hell in a hotel would have echoes of what Jack Nicholson went through in "The Shining." There's booze, there's delusions, there's the blurry line between reality and dark fantasy, and there's a Satre-like feeling of No Exit. This is a smart hotel room. It knows the demons in Cusack's past and they come back for a round of play - play being used in the most malevolent sense. Cusack's demons are joined by many of the ghosts who indeed died violently in the times before the room was closed. He records his observations on a mini-cassette recorder, and his thoughts progress from observing the mundane to, well, a conversation with his dead daughter. It's a fairly simple flick in a way: Man trapped in haunted hotel room, must cope. But the story keeps turning in on itself, twisting and turning in ways so that you don't know what's going on in Cusack's head - like maybe it's all after a surfing accident he had - or is really happening. Bonus points for one of King's fave devices: Taking a gooey pop song and thrusting it in an evil context, the choice here being the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." We mention this movie because it's one of those that are likely to get lost in the "Transformers" haze, and, really it's a pretty gripping take on belief and disbelief, madness and sanity. And there's some pretty cool jump-out-of-your skin special effects, too. At the Braintree, Randolph and Revere cinemas. Check website below for times. Ticket: $9-$10.

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