Stephen King: Ranking His Films From Worst To Best

32. Secret Window

Now here's a controversial one. The accepted narrative is that Johnny Depp has more or less tanked his career, having committed to one too many Pirates Of The Caribbean films, put all his remaining eggs in the basket of the inexplicable Mortdecai, and now mostly getting by on Tim Burton casting him in everything. In reality, things had been on the downturn long before. It probably started, in fact, with Secret Window. This is another King adaptation that had the odds stacked against it from the start, since the novella it's based on is also pretty naff. Plus it mostly just revisits stuff done better in The Dark Half. Depp plays Stephen King analogue Mort Rainey, a successful author who goes off the deep end when his wife has an affair. At the same time John Tuturro's farmer accuses Mort of plagiarism, and when Mort's pets and loved one start getting picked off, Tuturro is the main suspect. And then there's the worst twist ever. A waste of time for all involved.