Something awful lurks behind the door of room 1408. Something so soul-shakingly terrifying that it would rattle the nerves of Wes Craven, the Mythbusters, and Peter Venkman combined:

Thirty or forty entertainment journalists. Devouring a buffet spread.

John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in 1408. Photo by David Appleby/Dimension Films

You see, this is not the Dolphin Hotel's room 1408 — the one aptly described as "an evil fucking room" in the Stephen King short-story-turned-John-Cusack-starring fright flick of the same name — this is room 1408 of Beverly Hills's tony Four Seasons, which for the day has been cleverly converted into a hospitality suite for the lost souls huddled in the shadows hoping to suck fresh quotes from living celebrities. Blocking out the sounds of pesto-crusted chicken-inspired moans and the gooey slosh of saliva that greets both the food and the giveaway items ("A soundtrack!") with equal fervor, we make our way out of the room of horrors and into a brightly-lit ballroom where our victims — sorry, the film's cast and crew — soon face our teeming brood.

They enter single file, in accordance with the nameplates on the conference table: Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, star Samuel L. Jackson (who plays the Dolphin Hotel's resident crypt keeper, Mr. Olin), Cusack (the film's cynical spook-hunter Mike Enslin), Mary McCormack (Enslin's estranged wife, Lily), and Swedish-born director Mikael Håfström.

Right out of the gate, the stars are confronted with a convoluted question about whether or not they choose films based on their appeal to international audiences. Jackson and Cusack, however, handle it with aplomb and instantly set the tone. Cusack goes with humor: "I just thought it would be cool to be on a poster with Sam Jackson." Jackson goes with I-could-give-a-crap. "I just go to work, I never think about where they're going to sell it," he shrugs. "That's not my problem."

Their playfulness inspires the room, and leads to a question about Jackson's trailer-ready line, "It's an evil fucking room." Was there, by chance, a take where he screamed, "I'm tired of these motherfucking ghosts in their motherfucking evil room"? "No, it never occurred to me," chuckles Jackson. To which Cusack counters, "I was actually pissed off about that, because it's PG-13 and I was getting tortured in this room for 15 weeks and all you want to do is swear, right? But you can't because Sam Jackson has used the one 'fuck' allowed in the film. He gets the cool line and I get nothing." Jackson, naturally, comes right back. "'It's an evil fucking room' is a great T-shirt. Just having 'Fuck!' — that's not a T-shirt."