Secret Window is the latest effort from Hollywood’s scriptwriter turned director, David Koepp. The film itself is based on Stephen King's short story reworking of the Dark Half, entitled Secret Window, Secret Garden. The fact that the stories are so similar only serves to further ground the story into extremely familiar territory. For a man who has proved to be a veritable fountain of creepy ideas, I must say King has shown a propensity to repeat himself these past few years. Even David Koepp seems well aware of, and poke fun at the alarming similarities to the Dark Half, as he has cast Timothy Hutton, the George Romero film version’s George Stark, in a supporting role. But as time has proven again and again, third party screen adaptations of King’s work tend to be far better than ones he has had a hand in himself, so it can’t really be that bad a film.

Or could it?

The film stars Johnny Depp, as Mort Raney - successful author and soon to be divorcee. Sporting a peroxide job similar to the orangutan orange abuses you see on the Hong Kong exchange students, Mort has holed himself up in his cabin retreat to distance himself from his pending marital split, and better focus on his writing at hand. Oddly enough, he’s spending a lot more napping than working. Enter horrific hick, John Shooter (John Turturro, resembling the preacher from Poltergeist II: The Other Side) who accuses Mort of outright plagiarism, a transgression considered comparable to intellectual rape by many in the literary world. He tells Mort that he wants justice, and it’s up to him to take care of the matter. It doesn’t help that Shooter seems slightly off his rocker, and Mort’s been guilty of plagiarism at least once in his past. Needless to say, Depp frantically tries to prove his innocence to the imposing redneck, before he does what scary pilgrims in horror films do best: kill stuff.



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