Secret Window

This is one of the few movies that you will either love or hate. There is no middle ground. The people that have slammed this movie must not have understood a lot of the symbolism. Seriously, some of it is obvious but a lot of it would require you listen to the Director's commentary to catch.

While aspects of the story are predictable, you will never see the last couple minutes coming. Koepp made a film that HE believed in, with a finale that may not sit well with the general public. For this, I applaud him.

As I've noted on the message board, Koepp borrowed a page from Hitchcock's book and relied on our imagination to fill in the gaps during the violent sequences. Some of it is shown but certainly not all. Without question this film tested the limits of the PG-13 rating but Koepp did not take the easy way out and turn this film into an R-rated gore fest. This film proves that PG-13 films can be gritty and poignant.

Depp's performance is amazing, as can be expected. The cinematography is awesome. Watch this film with an open mind, taking to heart each character's motivations.

If you've already seen the film I would strongly suggest you watch the Featurettes and listen to the Director's commentary on the DVD. You may find this to be quite an eye opener.

My Score: 8/10 stars

I've seen psychological thriller's that try to scare you more than melt your brain, this one I'm proud to say does both. It's a very, very malicious and haunting thrill machine. I t brings the very essence of how horror and Psycho thriller's are suppose to be done, not with over the top gore and CGI, but with old school conventional means.

Secret Window is as sinister as it is smart it rolls along at a very steady pace and brings more to the table than what was required. It shows you what the decent into madness and utter chaos looks like, it shows you the depth and moral ambiguities of a torn man who's lost everything. With that said you can examine the physic of the mind as it cracks under extreme and constant pressure and how your choices do affect who you help, or who you hurt. This film's pace and dark style is meant to reflect horror films of the 40's, 50's, 60's and early 70's before gore became cool but that makes this film such a joy to watch and study. And that makes it a great film, not a good film, a great film.

Johnny Depp( who was fantastic here.) gives a very eccentric and brilliant performance as the conflicted writer Mort Rainey, John Turturro does exceptionally well as the sinister and vicious Shooter and he almost outclasses Depp in this film. Charles S. Dutton does well with the few scenes he's. But the main let down and I think the reason for this film's poor reviews from critics were the bland and very lame performances of Timothy Hutton( he won an Oscar he can do better than this.) and Maria Bello, they really lowered the caliber and class of this film and forced Depp to try harder to make them look good and make there time on screen with him good, but he succeeds and they fail. But Turturro and Depp hold up strong.

Secret Window is a very Keene and captivating psychological/horror thriller that is surefire mind boggling entertainment and out of this world fun. This movie is great rainy day entertainment or any day entertainment for that matter it's just all around a fantastic and mind boggling film that makes you question the sanity of writers and the world they live in ( speaking as one myself.) it brings to question as the thoughts in our mind really our conscious or our selves just speaking out to right the wrongs doe against us It's a film that ask those questions and then you have to answer. All in all Secret Window was a sinister, malicious and thought provoking film that delivers a movie going experience like no other.

Secret window is a quite entertaining movie with an intrigue story line. From the very beginning, you feel engaged and wonder what will happen next. However, the ending is very very cliché and a big let down. A promising suspense movie that blows it at the finale. I wish they worked out the ending and come up with a better one. If you noticed, the lead actress here was playing in the "pay back". There she was the lover of the hero who was betrayed by his wife. Here she plays the betrayer. A twist of faith. If nothing, Secret Window is worth watching just for Depp. Also I like Charless Dutton as always, although his role here is limited. (I don't know what is with this guy, he is so sympathetic and fills every role he is in)

Mort Rainey, a successful writer received an unwanted visitor one day, Mr Shooter, who accuses him of plagiarism, Mort's life spirals out if control.

I have to be honest, I absolutely loved it, I'd class it as a real classic, it had a touch of everything, horror, thriller, psychological drama, I thought it was great.

'The only thing that matters is the ending.' Never a truer word has been spoken, it built and built, it developed pace and momentum, and peaked with a tremendous conclusion, the best bit of the film.

Johnny Depp, what can you say, absolutely incredible here, he's outstanding.

I loved it, 9/10.

This movie should be paying huge debts to much better psychological thrillers like PSYCHO or MISERY (coincidentally, the latter is another Stephen King book adaptation), but nevertheless, SECRET WINDOW is creepy, disturbing and haunting. Not to mention it benefits from a strong performance from Johnny Depp.