Hotels are a naturally creepy place. Maybe that's why Stephen King enjoys writing about them so much. The Shining may be the more popular of the two stories, but 1408 is equally as fascinating. King himself said this was his favorite adaptation of his work. 1408 is a psychological horror film made in 2007 that is more concerned with ideas and thoughts than lousy jump scares. This movie is clearly a spin on The Divine Comedy and tells a modern tale of Dante traversing through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso (or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise).
The story follows Mike Enslin—a writer separated from his wife after losing his daughter to cancer who now seeks to debunk all stories of haunted locations in order to prove that there is no God or afterlife. 1408 is about Mike's journey through the 9 layers of Hell and the 7 layers of Purgatory in an attempt to reach Paradise while simultaneously dealing with the 7 stages of grief. In the story of Dante's Inferno, Dante awakens and is met by Virgil—his guide through Hell sent by Beatrice, the symbol of Divine Love (in the movie Beatrice could be Mike's daughter). Dante is warned not to move further into Hell, but he is enticed by his own sin to move forward into the first layer of Hell (Limbo).
Similarly, Mike is warned multiple times not to enter into room 1408, but he is seduced by his hatred of God and goes in anyway. No one is making Dante or Mike move forward into Hell, except for themselves. In the movie, Samuel L. Jackson's character Gerald Olin is Virgil. Mike is already in Limbo, he is living a life that isn't horrible but is not progressing. So what does that make the room, itself? In Dante's Inferno, the second circle is considered to be Hell proper—where punishment begins. Gerald says those who enter only last an hour; the deeper meaning behind this is that time has no relevance since they will continue to live this "hour" for the rest of eternity. The room 1408 is Mike's personal Hell—the start of the second level—and anytime he is outside the room he is in Limbo.
It is said in ancient mythology that a man who carries evil with him into death will be tormented by that evil, but a man who carries good with him will inherit a state of bliss. Mike has carried his sins with him into Hell and will now be tormented by them. In the movie, he must go through the layers of Hell in order to reach Purgatory so he can climb the Divine Ladder to overcome each of the 7 deadly sins in order to reach his state of bliss in Paradise. Gerald is neither good nor evil, he acts only as a Shepard to lead Mike through his personal Hell so that he may overcome his sins and be free of his grief from the loss of his daughter.
In the second circle of Hell, Dante was overcame by his Lust and "fell as a dead body falls" into the third layer of Hell. The second circle is a place where there is constant turbulence and no rest. Mike experiences this when he sees his doppelgänger (an omen of death in English and German folklore), which scares him enough to try to leave the room anyway he can. Mike is tormented by his sin of Lust, and he is lured out onto the ledge of his 13th story room so he can escape into his pretty neighbor's room. But the woman's window is now gone, in fact, his room's window is the only one on the entire building, and it's slowly closing. If Mike had not gone into the next layer of Hell and gotten stuck in layer 2, he would forever have to cling to the ledge of a skyscraper with no rest.
Viewers can make all kinds of speculations about the movie 1408 because underneath its straight forward narrative lies some unanswered questions. To enter Hell, must one die first? And if so, has Mike committed the sin of suicide? There are several spirits that Mike sees in the room that committed suicide because they were trapped. Ironically, they must now live eternity here in the room only to reenact their suicide every hour for the rest of time. A noose follows Mike around the room when he returns to it after his brief time in Limbo, possibly taunting him with the very sin that put him here. These clues, paired with Mike having seen his doppelgänger, prove he is dead.
Mike overcomes his desire to escape room 1408 by death because he knows it means he'll be trapped in Hell forever. He then goes through all 7 stages of grief while battling his urges to hold onto the sins of the past. Mike decides to sacrifice himself so that the room cannot claim anyone else's life. He sets the room on fire using a bottle of alcohol. This is both a metaphor of cleansing by fire as well as Mike letting go of his sin of alcoholism (part of the gluttony stage of Purgatory). A fireman pulls Mike out of the burning room, and he is reunited with his wife. Has Mike been given another chance at life, or has he reached Paradise?