Secret Window - Plot

Plot

Successful author Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) suffers a psychotic break when he catches his wife, Amy (Maria Bello) having an affair. He procrastinates finalizing the divorce by retreating to his secluded cabin in the rural town of Tashmore Lake in upstate New York. Depressed and suffering from writer's block, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro), a Mississippi dairy farmer who accuses him of plagiarism. Shooter leaves his manuscript "Sowing Season" which he alleges was copied. Mort dismisses Shooter as a lunatic and throws the book away, but his cleaning lady digs it out of the trash and presents it back to him. With his curiosity piqued, Mort reads the story and is surprised to discover its resemblance to his own story "Secret Window".

During his walk the following day, Mort is accosted by Shooter when he explains his story was published years before Shooter's existed. He is given a three-day ultimatum by Shooter to provide the proof. That night, Mort finds Chico, his Australian Cattle Dog, stabbed to death with a screwdriver in his neck. Mort immediately suspects Shooter and reports the incident to Sheriff Dave Newsome (Len Cariou), who reacts with little enthusiasm.

Mort later drives to his house where his estranged wife Amy is living to obtain a copy of the book and stews outside as he watches her leave with her new lover Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton). In New York City, Mort contacts Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton), a private investigator who assisted Mort in a previous incident identical to the current situation. Ken travels to Tashmore Lake to watch over the cabin and to interview Tom Greenleaf (John Dunn Hill), the only witness to Mort and Shooter's conversation.

When Mort returns to his cabin, Amy calls saying their house was burned down, consequently destroying the copy of the book to prove his case against Shooter. He begins to suspect Ted of hiring Shooter to harass him because of their shared animosity towards one another.

Shooter shows up again, this time demanding Mort fix the story's ending, and Mort feigns agreement. The next morning, Mort is perplexed to find his Jeep Cherokee idling in his driveway (with Pall Mall cigarette butts smoldering in the ashtray) when he leaves for his appointment with Ken. He shows up late to the diner where they planned to meet, but learns from a cashier that Ken never showed up at all. Back at the cabin, Mort receives a call from Shooter requesting a private meeting in the woods and when he arrives he finds Ken and Tom dead in Tom's truck. Shooter indicates he has implicated Mort in the murders, requiring Mort to cover up the crime by running the truck into a water-filled stone quarry, losing his watch in the process.

Mort's literary agent sends a copy of the magazine with his published story via UPS and Mort picks it up at the post office. When he arrives home with the magazine he opens it to find that the specific pages containing the story have been cut out. Mort's "inner voice" tells him that since the magazine was in a sealed package, Shooter couldn't have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience leads Mort to realize that Shooter is merely a figment of his imagination; brought to life through Mort's dissociative identity disorder and created to carry out the acts of killing Chico, Tom, Ken and burning down his home.

Amy coincidentally arrives to get his signature to finalize the divorce settlement. She finds the cabin disheveled, with the word "shooter" carved throughout. Mort suddenly appears and Amy is struck by fear when she realizes the word is Mort's desire to "shoot her." Mort, now wearing Shooter's hat and speaking with a southern accent, chases Amy outside to her car and stabs her in the ankle to prevent her from leaving. Ted arrives shortly afterwards and Amy watches helplessly as Mort ambushes and beheads him with a shovel while Amy screams vainly. Mort then recites the ending of "Sowing Season" as he beats Amy to death off-screen.

Mort recovers from his writer's block, but is now the town pariah. Dave stops by the cabin to advise Mort he is the prime suspect of Amy and Ted's disappearance and will be arrested once the bodies are found, but Mort nonchalantly dismisses the threat. Dave leaves and Mort again recites the "perfect" ending to his story as he dines on an ear of fresh corn from his garden as the camera pans out to the garden of corn and blacks out on the ground.