Secret Window

Secret Window's tag line – "Some windows should never be opened" – is so snarkily appropriate in its unintentional damning of this ridiculously overwrought psychothriller that it's a wonder some smart underling at Columbia hasn't leapfrogged up the studio ladder by pointing it out to the powers that be. Their error is the critics' gain, though, and even the presence of Johnny Depp, as novelist Mort Rainey, can't save this film from its own unintended melodramatics. Secret Window lacks a B-movie sucker punch, and by the final reel it degenerates into a hackneyed mishmash of obvious revelations and cheap, ineffective horror theatrics despite Depp's mangy fun. There's no car crash in this one as in his current television project Kingdom Hospital and much of his recent writing – King penned it before that wayward van almost took him out of the running forever – but the film itself is an effective enough metaphor for out-of-control bs that frankly was part and parcel of King's novella from page one.