FAQ for
Secret Window (2004) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Secret Window can be found here.

Secret Window is based on Secret Window, Secret Garden, a novella in a collection of four novellas in the book Four Past Midnight (1990) by American horror writer Stephen King. The novella was adapted for the movie by American screenwriter and director, David Koepp.

Published author Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp), newly estranged from his wife of 10 years due to her infidelity, finds himself accused of plagiarism by a stranger named John Shooter (John Turturro). While Mort attempts to provide proof that he first published the story two years before Shooter claims to have written it, Shooter becomes more and more aggressive, killing Mort's dog and two of his friends and burning down his house. Meanwhile, Mort's wife Amy (Maria Bello) is pressing him to sign the divorce papers so that she can get on with her life with her new beau, the rubber-necking Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton).

The fact that Mrs Garvey (Joan Heney), the cleaning lady, is seen cleaning Mort's cabin and then is never seen again has prompted some viewers to suggest that Mort either killed her (as he says to Chico, "If you don't bite her, I'll kill her.") or that she was a figment of his imagination. In the novella, however, Mrs Garvey was real, although Mort didn't like her very much because he thought she liked Amy better. It is also explained in the novella, as well as on the DVD commentary track, that she cleans once a week, on Tuesdays, the day that John Shooter first shows up. From there, the rest of the story (except for the epilogue) takes place over a three day period, so Mrs Garvey wasn't due back for four more days after the movie's climax on a Friday.

Think of the mirrors as "bookends" or "going through the looking glass," as some have described them. At the beginning of the movie, the camera pans through a mirror into the cabin where Mort lies sleeping on the couch. Near the end of the movie, the camera pans through a mirror outside of the cabin where Amy has just driven up with the divorce papers that she's hoping Mort will finally sign. According to the DVD commentary, the intended significance of the mirrors is meant to show that the incidents taking place between the two mirror shots are seen from Mort's point-of-view, whereas the final pan through the mirror alters the story to Amy's point-of-view.

Mort had assured Shooter that he had stored at Amy's house a copy of the June 1995 issue of Ellergy Queen, the magazine in which his story was first published, and promised to get it for him in order to prove that he was not a plagiarist. Shooter torched the house to prevent Mort from getting his hands on the magazine. Fortunately, Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton), the private investigator hired by Mort to investigate Shooter, phoned Mort's agent and arranged for a copy of the magazine to be sent to him the next day.

Shooter wants Mort to rewrite the ending so that it reads: "'I know I can do it,' Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. 'I'm sure that, in time, her death will be a mystery even to me.' "

The viewers are split on this issue. Some say that, once Shooter had gotten what he came for (the change in the story's ending), he disappeared, evidenced by Mort's comment in the grocery store that he's now wearing braces because he is "getting a few things straightened out." Others maintain that Shooter did exactly what he intended to do...kill Mort. The evidence is in the story's "perfect" ending. Mort's story began with Tommy Haverlock (Mort) wanting to kill his wife and ended with Todd Downey (Shooter) actually doing it.

After Mort discovers that John Shooter is a figment of his own personality, he fully embraces the situation. Amy shows up at the cabin, hoping to get Mort to sign the divorce papers. She is aghast when she sees that the cabin has deteriorated into a total mess and notices the word "shooter" all over the walls and furniture. A door slowly closes, revealing Mort (wearing Shooter's hat) behind the door. His body covers the "-er" in "shooter" but the word "her" is very apparent. Amy realizes that Mort intends to "shoot her", and she tries to get away. Mort drags her out of her car and stabs her in the leg with a screwdriver. Ted shows up looking for Amy, but Mort smacks him in the face with a shovel. As Mort returns to finish off Amy, he quotes the ending of the story in a voice-over. Six months pass. Mort is in town buying some groceries (butter, Morton salt, and napkins). People who were once friendly to him now seem uncomfortable around him. Later, the sheriff goes to his cabin and sees ears of corn all over the kitchen counters. He says that he knows what Mort did and they'll put him away once they find the bodies. He orders him not to shop in town anymore because it makes the people uncomfortable. Mort, who is currently working on a story, informs the sheriff that the ending of a story is all that matters and that this ending is "perfect". In the final scene, the camera zooms through the secret window down to a garden of corn, indicating that's where the bodies are buried.

Shooter (and his other personality) was suffering from what is known in psychology as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). DID/MPD is not, as some believe, the same as schizophrenia. Although the word schizophrenia comes from two Greek words meaning "split mind", there is only one personality involved in schizophrenia, unlike in Scooter's case where two distinct personalities live within the same individual; oftentimes one of them is not even aware of the existence of the other. The cause of DID/MPD is unknown, but one theory is that it is the mind's way of dealing with severe trauma. The mind may tend to "compartmentalize" various memories and emotions so that they become hidden within various personalities, and the individual doesn't have to consciously deal with them.

Viewers have recommended several movies with twist endings similar to Secret Window. Two of them, The Shining (1980) and The Dark Half (1993), are also from stories by Stephen King. There is Hide and Seek (2005) in which a father and daughter are terrorized by the daughter's imaginary friend, and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) in which the mother of a motel owner murders the guests. Also recommended are Raising Cain (1992), Fight Club (1999), Memento (2000), Identity (2003), Thr3e (2006), and The Uninvited (2009). Movies that deal with real cases of DID/MPD include The Three Faces of Eve (1957), in which a woman discovers that she has three distinct personalities, and Sybil (1976) in which a woman develops at least 13 different personalities. Any of the various movie versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) might also qualify.