They went back to the hotel, drove all the way there, the body of that guy was still there yet when they go into the elevator they're right back.
shareThat was a tad confusing and an unwise "twist" by the filmmakers. I took it as the location/spirit "siked" them out.
shareThey were hallucinating. The old building likes to play tricks. But I'm pretty sure Alex said they never left.
shareThey must have really gone back to the hotel, or the video wouldn't have recorded them in the corridor, and they wouldn't have been able to put that bit in the finished film. I saw it that it had the power to pull them back...
(spoilers)
....hence Alex's desperation to keep his side of the bargain at the end, cos he thinks the hospital can pull him back in any time it likes.
~ I hardly looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. ~
while watching the film, as soon as there was the shot of the maid watching them through the closing elevator doors, i knew they never left the building.... i knew it 1408'd them....
but, as you said, alex's desperation at the end, pleading into the cop car's dashcam that he promises to make the film, that scene made me think, well maybe the building did/can transport it's occupants through time/space, and it was not a hallucination the first time they left...
It's mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality...
Yeah, that's what I thought too. The building has control over it's "occupants", much like in The Grudge where the curse would follow you around the world, wherever you went.
"I'll be your scapegoat, I'll be your savior, I'm the better of two evils."