Secret Window
Encyclopedia
Secret Window is a 2004 psychological horror
film
starring Johnny Depp
and John Turturro
. It was written and directed by David Koepp
, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden
by Stephen King
, featuring a musical score by Philip Glass
and Geoff Zanelli
. The story appeared in King's collection Four Past Midnight
. The film was released on March 12, 2004, by Columbia Pictures
.
) suffers a psychotic break
when he catches his wife, Amy (Maria Bello
) having an affair. He procrastinates finalizing the divorce
by retreating to his secluded cabin in the rural town of Tashmore Lake in upstate New York
. Depressed and suffering from writer's block
, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro
), a Mississippi
dairy farmer who accuses him of plagiarism
. Shooter leaves his manuscript
"Sowing Season" which he alleges was copied. Mort dismisses Shooter as mentally ill and throws the book away, but his cleaning lady digs it out of the trash and presents it back to him. With his curiosity piqued, Mort reads the story and is surprised to discover its resemblance to his own story "Secret Window".
During his walk the following day, Mort is accosted by Shooter when he explains his story was published years before Shooter's existed. He is given a three-day ultimatum by Shooter to provide the proof. That night, Mort finds Chico, his Australian Cattle Dog
, stabbed to death with a screwdriver in his neck. Mort immediately suspects Shooter and reports the incident to Sheriff Newsome (Len Cariou
), who reacts with little enthusiasm. Mort then drives to his house where his estranged wife Amy is living to obtain a copy of the book and stews outside as he watches her leave with her new lover Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton
). In New York City, Mort hires private investigator
Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton
), who travels to Tashmore Lake to watch over the cabin and to interview Tom Greenleaf (John Dunn Hill), the only witness to Mort and Shooter's conversation. Amy later calls saying their house was burned down, consequently destroying the copy of the book to prove his case against Shooter. He begins to suspect Ted of hiring Shooter to harass him because of their shared animosity towards one another.
Shooter shows up again, this time demanding Mort fix the story's ending, and Mort feigns agreement. Mort is perplexed to find his jeep idling in his driveway the next morning when he leaves for his appointment with Karsch. He shows up late to the diner where they planned to meet, but learns from a cashier that Karsch never showed up at all. Back at the cabin, Mort receives a call from Shooter requesting a private meeting in the woods and when he arrives he finds Karsch and Greenleaf dead in Greenleaf's truck. Shooter indicates he has implicated Mort in the murders, requiring Mort to cover up the crime by running the truck into a water-filled stone quarry.
Mort orders a copy of the magazine with his published story and picks it up at the post office. When he arrives home with the magazine he opens it to find that the specific pages containing the story have been cut out. Mort's "inner voice" tells him that since the magazine was in a sealed package, Shooter couldn't have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience
leads Mort to realize that Shooter is merely a figment of his imagination; brought to life through Mort's dissociative identity disorder
and created to carry out malevolent tasks like killing his dog and burning down the house.
Just as Mort comes to realize his psychosis
, Amy coincidentally arrives to get his signature to finalize the divorce settlement. She finds the cabin disheveled, with the word "shooter" carved throughout and suspects Mort's drinking as the cause. Mort suddenly reveals himself and Amy is struck by fear when she spots a carving explaining that "shooter" actually implies Mort's desire to "shoot her." Mort, now wearing Shooter's hat and speaking with a southern accent
, chases Amy outside to her car and injures her to prevent her from escaping. Ted arrives shortly afterwards and Amy watches helplessly as Mort ambushes and kills him with a shovel. Mort then recites the ending in Shooter's version of the story as he murders Amy.
With Amy and Ted dead, Mort recovers from his writer's block and becomes less reclusive, even though he is now the town pariah. Newsome stops by the cabin to advise Mort he is the prime suspect of Amy and Ted's disappearance and will be arrested once the bodies are found, but Mort nonchalantly dismisses the threat. Newsome leaves and Mort again recites the "perfect" ending to his story as he dines on an ear of fresh corn from his garden, hinting that Amy and Ted's bodies are buried in the ground beneath the corn crops, and that the corn is breaking down the nutrients from the bodies so they will decompose and the police will never find them.
, the movie has a rating of 46% based on 157 reviews. On Metacritic, the movie has a score of 46 (mixed or average reviews) out of 100. Roger Ebert
awarded it three stars out of a possible four, stating that "[Secret Window] could add up to a straight-faced thriller about things that go boo in the night, but Johnny Depp and director David Koepp ... have too much style to let that happen." He continues by noting that "[t]he story is more entertaining as it rolls along than it is when it gets to the finish line. But at least King uses his imagination right up to the end, and spares us the obligatory violent showdown that a lesser storyteller would have settled for." On the other hand, Ian Nathan from Empire magazine
only awarded the film 2 stars out of a possible 5, stating that "The presence of the sublime Depp will be enough to get Secret Window noticed, but even his latest set of rattling eccentricities is not enough to energise this deadbeat parlour trick." It was a modest box office success, succeeding at recouping its budget of $40,000,000 with a worldwide gross of $92,000,000.
in the Eastern Townships
approximately two hours south east of Montreal
.
Timothy Hutton
played a dual role in another movie based on Stephen King's book The Dark Half
, which is similarly about a writer that gradually realizes his pseudonymed alter ego has come to life, with homicidal results.
Psychological horror
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
starring Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
and John Turturro
John Turturro
John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
. It was written and directed by David Koepp
David Koepp
-Career:As a writer, Koepp has worked on such blockbuster Hollywood films as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, and Spider-Man. Koepp had a cameo as the "Unlucky Bastard" in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in which he was serving as Writer and Second Unit Director.His work as a director has not had...
, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden is one of four novellas published in the Stephen King book Four Past Midnight in 1990. It is similar to King's earlier novel The Dark Half...
by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
, featuring a musical score by Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
and Geoff Zanelli
Geoff Zanelli
Geoff Zanelli is a composer working primarily in the medium of film music. His early career was notable for scoring additional music on roughly 30 film scores written by Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, Klaus Badelt and Steve Jablonsky including several blockbuster films...
. The story appeared in King's collection Four Past Midnight
Four Past Midnight
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four novellas by Stephen King, published in 1990. The four stories are "The Langoliers"; "Secret Window, Secret Garden"; "The Library Policeman"; and "The Sun Dog".- The Langoliers :...
. The film was released on March 12, 2004, by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
.
Plot
Successful author Mort Rainey (Johnny DeppJohnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
) suffers a psychotic break
Psychotic break
A psychotic break is a term used to describe an occasion of a person experiencing an episode of acute primary psychosis, either for the first time or after a significant period of relative asymptomaticity. Several types of psychoactive drugs have been shown to correlate with psychotic breaks...
when he catches his wife, Amy (Maria Bello
Maria Bello
Maria Elena Bello is an American actress and singer known for her appearances in the movies Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Permanent Midnight, Thank You for Smoking, A History of Violence, Payback, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. For television she is known for her role as Dr...
) having an affair. He procrastinates finalizing the divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
by retreating to his secluded cabin in the rural town of Tashmore Lake in upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
. Depressed and suffering from writer's block
Writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro
John Turturro
John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
), a Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
dairy farmer who accuses him of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. Shooter leaves his manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
"Sowing Season" which he alleges was copied. Mort dismisses Shooter as mentally ill and throws the book away, but his cleaning lady digs it out of the trash and presents it back to him. With his curiosity piqued, Mort reads the story and is surprised to discover its resemblance to his own story "Secret Window".
During his walk the following day, Mort is accosted by Shooter when he explains his story was published years before Shooter's existed. He is given a three-day ultimatum by Shooter to provide the proof. That night, Mort finds Chico, his Australian Cattle Dog
Australian Cattle Dog
The Australian Cattle Dog is a breed of herding dog originally developed in Australia for droving cattle over long distances across rough terrain. In the 19th century, New South Wales cattle farmer Thomas Hall crossed the dogs used by drovers in his parents' home county, Northumberland, with...
, stabbed to death with a screwdriver in his neck. Mort immediately suspects Shooter and reports the incident to Sheriff Newsome (Len Cariou
Len Cariou
Leonard Joseph “Len” Cariou is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street...
), who reacts with little enthusiasm. Mort then drives to his house where his estranged wife Amy is living to obtain a copy of the book and stews outside as he watches her leave with her new lover Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
). In New York City, Mort hires private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton
Charles S. Dutton
Charles Stanley Dutton is an American stage, film, and television actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his roles as "Fortune" in the film Rudy and "Dillon" in Alien 3...
), who travels to Tashmore Lake to watch over the cabin and to interview Tom Greenleaf (John Dunn Hill), the only witness to Mort and Shooter's conversation. Amy later calls saying their house was burned down, consequently destroying the copy of the book to prove his case against Shooter. He begins to suspect Ted of hiring Shooter to harass him because of their shared animosity towards one another.
Shooter shows up again, this time demanding Mort fix the story's ending, and Mort feigns agreement. Mort is perplexed to find his jeep idling in his driveway the next morning when he leaves for his appointment with Karsch. He shows up late to the diner where they planned to meet, but learns from a cashier that Karsch never showed up at all. Back at the cabin, Mort receives a call from Shooter requesting a private meeting in the woods and when he arrives he finds Karsch and Greenleaf dead in Greenleaf's truck. Shooter indicates he has implicated Mort in the murders, requiring Mort to cover up the crime by running the truck into a water-filled stone quarry.
Mort orders a copy of the magazine with his published story and picks it up at the post office. When he arrives home with the magazine he opens it to find that the specific pages containing the story have been cut out. Mort's "inner voice" tells him that since the magazine was in a sealed package, Shooter couldn't have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
leads Mort to realize that Shooter is merely a figment of his imagination; brought to life through Mort's dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
and created to carry out malevolent tasks like killing his dog and burning down the house.
Just as Mort comes to realize his psychosis
Psychosis
Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
, Amy coincidentally arrives to get his signature to finalize the divorce settlement. She finds the cabin disheveled, with the word "shooter" carved throughout and suspects Mort's drinking as the cause. Mort suddenly reveals himself and Amy is struck by fear when she spots a carving explaining that "shooter" actually implies Mort's desire to "shoot her." Mort, now wearing Shooter's hat and speaking with a southern accent
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
, chases Amy outside to her car and injures her to prevent her from escaping. Ted arrives shortly afterwards and Amy watches helplessly as Mort ambushes and kills him with a shovel. Mort then recites the ending in Shooter's version of the story as he murders Amy.
With Amy and Ted dead, Mort recovers from his writer's block and becomes less reclusive, even though he is now the town pariah. Newsome stops by the cabin to advise Mort he is the prime suspect of Amy and Ted's disappearance and will be arrested once the bodies are found, but Mort nonchalantly dismisses the threat. Newsome leaves and Mort again recites the "perfect" ending to his story as he dines on an ear of fresh corn from his garden, hinting that Amy and Ted's bodies are buried in the ground beneath the corn crops, and that the corn is breaking down the nutrients from the bodies so they will decompose and the police will never find them.
Cast
- Johnny DeppJohnny DeppJohn Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
as Mort Rainey - John TurturroJohn TurturroJohn Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
as John Shooter - Maria BelloMaria BelloMaria Elena Bello is an American actress and singer known for her appearances in the movies Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Permanent Midnight, Thank You for Smoking, A History of Violence, Payback, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. For television she is known for her role as Dr...
as Amy Rainey - Timothy HuttonTimothy HuttonTimothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
as Ted Milner - Len CariouLen CariouLeonard Joseph “Len” Cariou is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street...
as Sheriff Dave Newsome - Charles S. DuttonCharles S. DuttonCharles Stanley Dutton is an American stage, film, and television actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his roles as "Fortune" in the film Rudy and "Dillon" in Alien 3...
as Private Investigator Ken Karsch - John Dunn Hill as Tom Greenleaf
Reception
On Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, the movie has a rating of 46% based on 157 reviews. On Metacritic, the movie has a score of 46 (mixed or average reviews) out of 100. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
awarded it three stars out of a possible four, stating that "[Secret Window] could add up to a straight-faced thriller about things that go boo in the night, but Johnny Depp and director David Koepp ... have too much style to let that happen." He continues by noting that "[t]he story is more entertaining as it rolls along than it is when it gets to the finish line. But at least King uses his imagination right up to the end, and spares us the obligatory violent showdown that a lesser storyteller would have settled for." On the other hand, Ian Nathan from Empire magazine
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
only awarded the film 2 stars out of a possible 5, stating that "The presence of the sublime Depp will be enough to get Secret Window noticed, but even his latest set of rattling eccentricities is not enough to energise this deadbeat parlour trick." It was a modest box office success, succeeding at recouping its budget of $40,000,000 with a worldwide gross of $92,000,000.
Side notes
Part of the movie was filmed in the town of North Hatley, QuebecNorth Hatley, Quebec
North Hatley is a village of 750 people, located at the north end of Lake Massawippi. It is in the county of Stanstead, which is part of the Memphrémagog Regional County Municipality in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, also known as Estrie or Cantons de l'Est in French. It is a haven for...
in the Eastern Townships
Eastern Townships
The Eastern Townships is a tourist region and a former administrative region in south-eastern Quebec, lying between the former seigneuries south of the Saint Lawrence River and the United States border. Its northern boundary roughly followed Logan's Line, the geologic boundary between the flat,...
approximately two hours south east of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
played a dual role in another movie based on Stephen King's book The Dark Half
The Dark Half
The Dark Half is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1989. Publishers Weekly listed The Dark Half as the second best-selling book of 1989 behind Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger. It was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1993.Stephen King wrote several books under a...
, which is similarly about a writer that gradually realizes his pseudonymed alter ego has come to life, with homicidal results.