Metacritic reviews

Bloody, bone-chilling fun.

Depp gives a smart, subtle performance, and Turturro is terrific as a foe who's both exactly what he seems and exactly the opposite. Koepp's makes his (literally) corny tricks seemfresh and surprising.

It's a taught, entertaining motion picture that serves its purpose.

The resourceful actor (Depp) invigorates Secret Window with a playful personality and wryly humorous aplomb not front-and-center in the script, making the psycho-suspenser more compelling than it might otherwise have been.

Koepp, an often ingenious writer, should have followed King's example and covered his tracks better. If he had, Secret Window might have been as good as "Stir of Echoes," and not simply a mini "Misery" and a not-quite "Shining."

The movie telegraphs its intentions too early and relies too much on a single actor, Johnny Depp, to achieve its emotional force.

Doesn't keep any secrets but an open one: that Johnny Depp is on a roll, and actor's block is definitely not his problem.

The picture isn't nearly enough on any level: not scary, not suspenseful, not complex, not atmospheric.

Secret Window is almost worth seeing for his characteristically assured performance alone, but Koepp sabotages Depp and his surroundings with an ending so atrocious, it callously betrays everything that came before it.

The ultimate test of one's tolerance for King's self-aggrandizing postulations about writer's block, obsessive fans and the potentially frightening manifestations of the writer's id...It's just plain lousy.