- Directed by David Koepp
- Written by Stephen King, David Koepp
- Stars Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZiVFZEJes
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a really good one, taking a creepy stalker to another level. As things get worse and worse, we wonder how Mort the victim will get out of this. Can he satisfy the stalker and turn things around to free himself? Gotta watch to find out.
Synopsis
Mort Rainey sits in his car and tells himself to turn around and get out right now. Then he does just that– No, he has to go back to that motel. He goes inside the office, grabs a key, and interrupts a couple having sex inside. Credits roll.
Six months later, someone comes banging on Mort’s door. It’s John Shooter, who tells Mort, “You stole my story.” He’s unpleasant and wants to settle this dispute, but Mort has no idea what he’s even talking about. He leaves a copy of “Sowing Season” that John wrote; Mort’s never heard of him or his story. He looks at it, and it’s almost word for word of something he wrote in his story “Secret Window.” He keeps telling himself, “I didn’t steal that story. I don’t think.”
Mort’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Amy, calls. They talk about when he wrote the story, he was drunk most of the time.
Later, he runs into John in the woods. John says he wrote it seven years ago, but he has no idea how a big-deal author like Mort got ahold of his story. Mort says he wrote it in 1994. John is more than a little bit menacing. John gives Mort three days to get a copy of that magazine to prove the date.
That night, Mort finds his porch light has been broken. He also finds that his dog has been killed.
The next morning, Mort goes to the sheriff, but he seems a little incompetent. Next, he goes to his private investigator friend, Ken, who asks if Mort did steal the story, which Mort again denies. He stops by Amy’s house but doesn’t go in after the magazine.
When he returns to his cabin, he finds Ken waiting there for him. He’s checked the place out, and it’s all safe. Ken promises to check into John first thing in the morning. We see that Mort is maybe a little paranoid; he smashes his bathroom in a panic. He soon finds John outside, and he knows all about what Mort’s been up to. John really doesn’t like the way Mort messed up the ending he wrote. John threatens to find and hurt Amy if Mort doesn’t make things right.
The next morning, Amy calls and says someone burned down their house last night. He goes to assess the damage and runs into Amy and her boyfriend, Ted. They’re the couple he barged in on in the pre credit sequence. The fire investigator says it was definitely arson. Mort tells all about John as the likely suspect.
Amy asks if John is “like that other guy,” and Mort swears that it’s not like that this time. Mort and Ted argue at the insurance company. Ted mentions that he’s from “Shooter’s Bay.” John’s last name is Shooter. Hmmmm.
Ken calls; he ordered a copy of the magazine, and it’ll be there tomorrow. Ken suggests that maybe John is really working for someone else; could it be Ted? Only one person in town saw John, and the two make plans to see the old man in the morning.
Mort oversleeps in the morning and when he gets up, he finds his car open and running outside. When he gets to the meeting place, Ken hasn’t shown up yet. On his way back home, he runs into Ted at the gas station and accuses him of hiring John to terrorize him. Ted wants Mort and Amy’s divorce papers finalized, but Mort is stalling.
John calls Mort at home and tells him where to meet. Mort finds Tom, the old man who saw him with John, inside his car dead along with Ken, also dead. John says that he’s left plenty of evidence that points the two dead men to Mort. Mort cleans up the crime scene and dumps the victims’ truck into the lake– along with his wristwatch.
Mort goes to the Post Office and picks up a copy of this magazine. He tries to avoid the sheriff, who feels guilty about hiding the bodies. Mort looks at the magazine, and he finds that the important pages have already been torn out.
Mort starts talking to himself in a very unstable kind of way– he might just be crazy, he says so himself. He explains to himself that he made it all up; there is no John Shooter. John shows up and admits that he’s imaginary. He killed Tom and Ken and set Amy’s house on fire.
Amy arrives outside Mort’s cabin. She finds the pages of the story outside next to the car, right where Mort left them. She finds lots of evidence that Mort is simply crazy, including finding Mort wearing John’s hat and talking like he’s from Mississippi. She runs out to the car, but he grabs her and drags her out just as Ted drives up. Ted gets a shovel to the face and then gets beheaded, as does Amy.
Some time passes, and Mort’s all cleaned up and looking much healthier. He fixed the ending of his own story, so now he’s enjoying his happy ending. The sheriff comes by and says they both know what he did. “Eventually, we’ll find those bodies, tie them to you, and then we’ll put you away.” Mort explains that the ending to this story is perfect, and that’s the only thing that matters.
We look outside his “secret window” to the garden full of corn that’s growing there. What’s under all that corn to make it grow so thick and lush?
Commentary
The conflict was over whether Mort’s story appeared in a specific issue of a magazine. Couldn’t they have just looked it up online? This was in 2004 after all. The story wouldn’t have been available online, but surely some hobbyist had a list of the stories and dates. Still, the original story was written in 1995, so maybe that explains it.
I considered all along that John wasn’t real, but it wasn’t certain until near the end. Overall, I liked this one a lot!
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