I haven’t seen The Secret Window, with Johnny Depp, but from the trailer and a handful of reviews I’ve seen, it sounds an awful like The Dark Half. You know, writer stalked by his alter ego or pen name. Also by Stephen King. It was a made into a film or maybe TV movie several years ago. Anybody seen The Secret Window? Is it pretty much “The Dark Half:Full Throttle”?
It’s actually based on Secret Window, Secret Garden, one of the stories in Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight.
I’m looking forward to seeing this (John Turturro is effin’ perfect). Just hope they changed King’s ending. Was a good idea that he spoiled worse than week-old cheese.
Thank you, Gunslinger, I was wondering if that was it. I loved that story! Now I’m even more excited to see it (in other words, I now have another reason besides Johnny Depp to see it.
The Onion’s review says that the first act is cinematic gold, but it apparently all gets blown in the third act. So they were either faithful to King’s ending, or they made up a godawful one all on their own.
I (re?*)read it after I posted. The plot is somewhat similar to The Dark Half, but different. In this one (major spoiler if you haven’t read the book), he’s just insane, and the other guy didn’t exist at all.
*-- I know I’ve read Four Past Midnight all the way through, and remember the other three stories, but Secret Window, Secret Garden was entirely new to me. [cue Twilight Zone theme]
IIRC, Secret Window, Secret Garden was King playing with the Author/writing interplay in a different way than he did in Dark Half. Similar themes, but different slant on it, he basically plagiarized his own work. The author notes in Four past Midnight might even have mentioned this.
Out of curiousity, though, has there been any mention about King’s involvement in the marketing? I can’t seem to remember any. I’m sure all the appropriate credits are there, but I wonder why the trailers don’t have anything like “based on the novel[ette]/short story by Steven King”. Maybe they don’t want to imply it’s a horror movie? Or maybe they have and I’ve just missed them.
Although now that I think about it, the last movie I can remember marketing King’s name when he wasn’t personally involved with the project was “Lawnmower Man”, but that may be just because of the mess and a half that turned into was so memorable. I don’t think Shawshank Redemption or Dreamcatcher did either.
I just saw Secret Window and it is a little to similiar to another King book/movie, The Shinning.
[spoiler]Writer-husband no longer drinking, starts drinking , tries to kill wife. RedRum = Murder, Shooter = Shoot Her
The only difference is this time the wife dies.
[/spoiler]
I meant the The Shining. The Shinning was the Simpsons.
I agree. When I kept seeing ads for Secret Window all over the buses, I had no idea what the movie was about. Happened to pick up the New York Post (My guilty pleasure, it’s like an acceptable tabloid, that rag) and saw it referred to as “Secret Window, Secret Garden” and instantly realized it must have been the King novella. There was only one reference to King in the entire article.
And I’ll admit this. I call myself a King fan, but I had no idea that he had written Shawshank Redemption until a while back. And I even read Eyes of the Dragon! 
But yes, his name was very dissociated from that one.
Not mentioning Stephen King in the advertising and trailers was part of the deal he worked out when he traded the rights for “Secret Window, Secret Garden” for the chance to get “Kingdom Hospital” on the air. King gets a credit at the beginning of the movie, but they wanted to play down the SK connection in the ads, and the deal allowed that.
shrug I don’t claim to understand it; I just report on it.
Hijacking my own thread.
Based on Gunslinger’s spoiler, if the movie follows the story, this would be the fourth movie I’ve seen recently in which the protagonist is a figment of another characters imagination. Others are,
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Identity
Adaptation
Swimming Pool.
Are there other films in this quickly growing category? Is this plot device the “it was all a dream” of the 00’s?