Secret Window

Secret Window is a 2004 movie 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. The story appeared in King's collection Four Past Midnight. The film's studio is Columbia Pictures along with Sony Pictures.

Plot

• Tagline: Some windows should never be opened.

Johnny Depp plays successful writer Mort Rainey, who is suffering from writer's block and is in the middle of a divorce with his wife, Amy. Living alone in the woods, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter who accuses him of plagiarism: they have both written almost identical stories, Mort's "Secret Window" and Shooter's "Sowing Season."

Related Topics:
Mort Rainey - Writer's block - John Shooter - Plagiarism

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The movie follows Mort's struggles to prove conclusively to Shooter and to himself that he has not plagiarised the story. As the story progresses, Shooter murders a private investigator that Mort had hired to investigate Shooter, and a local man who was the only person to see them together.

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He also burns down the house of Mort's soon-to-be ex-wife as well as murdering his dog Chico.

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Mort eventually locates the magazine that proves he published "Secret Window" before Shooter wrote "Sowing Season." But when Mort gets the magazine, he finds that the story has been cut out. Mort's inner voice tells him that since the magazine was sent to him in a sealed UPS package, Shooter could not have tampered with it. Soon Mort realizes that Shooter is not real, that he made him up, and that he himself was the one that committed the murders. During this revelation, his concerned wife drives up to his cabin, and at that instant he changes his persona from the well-meaning Mort to the murderous Shooter. He then kills his wife and her lover, Ted, with a shovel and buries them in a garden. Afterwards Mort changes profoundly, his writer's block finally over and his passion for life returned. The movie, however, ends on a rather sinister note. The local sheriff informs Mort that he knows what he did and as soon as they find the bodies, he'll go to prison. Mort dismisses the statement nonchalantly, and replies that "the ending is the most important part of the story. This one is perfect." It is then revealed to us that by growing and consuming corn from the garden where his wife and her lover are buried, Mort is slowly destroying all the evidence needed to incriminate him bit by bit.

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