Secret Window Ending Explained- Psychotic Breaks, Corn, And The Meaning Behind John Shooter

Secret Window starring Johnny Depp, Mario Bello, and Apple TV+’s Severance’s incomparable John Turturro, is seeing a resurgence thanks to the bonkers Depp/Heard defamation trial that quite frankly deserves to be made into a streaming series like Hulu’s Pam and Tommy. Streaming currently on Netflix, the movie was adapted by David Koepp from a novella by Stephen King named Four Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden.

Mort Rainey is a reclusive writer who is in the middle of a messy divorce from his wife and is living in an isolated cabin in the woods. One day a strange southern man named John Shooter(Turturro) shows up at his door and claims Mort stole his story. Despite Mort denying he plagiarized Shooter’s story and claiming he has proof that he wrote the story years before Shooter’s, the odd man continues to harass him. Worse still, strange and terrible things begin happening around him, including the death of his dog. It all leads to a showdown between the two men that puts everything the viewer and Mort thought we knew in question. Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of Secret Window, Mort, and Shooter and all that corn.

The ending of Secret Window

Shooter has fully merged with Mort at the end of Secret Window and is now 100% in charge. There never was another man named Shooter, just Mort, who created the other personality to shield himself from the vile things he wants to do and has done. This is why Mort says to Shooter, “I don’t smoke.” when the two men are arguing. Shooter never offered him a cigarette which is why that is such a strange thing to say. He said that because he already had an internal dialogue, and we just didn’t realize it yet. It is also why Mort continually loses time only to wake up and find burnt houses and dead bodies. While he slept, Shooter did the things Mort secretly wished he could do.

Mort killed Amy and Ted because he hated them for ruining his life. He had no one to blame for the disaster his life became but himself. He was distant with his wife during their marriage and showed signs of mental illness from the beginning. After killing them, he buried them under the window in his loft that his wife called a “secret window.” It is all about perception. Things look differently from every view. The odd position of the window makes things look different than they would from a higher window. The same is true about Mort and Shooter. All of the pieces to the puzzle were there all along. We and Mort just needed to shift our perspective.

After his killing spree, Mort buried Ted and Amy in the garden directly below the window in his lift office. He then planted corn on top to hide the bodies. With every bite he takes, he devours their bodies and any evidence left behind. For Mort getting away with murder was the goal.

“The only thing that matters is the ending. This one is perfect”

Mort Rainey

Once Mort came to terms with what he had done, he overcame his writer block and found a newfound zeal for life. Unfortunately, that meant a whole lot of uncomfortable conversations and corn. The sheriff knows what he did but can’t prove it. Ted and Amy may stay hidden, but Tom’s truck could be found someday.

Mort and John Shooter

Mort can’t deal with the guilt and grief he feels, and as a result, John Shooter is born. He is an alter ego of Mort’s who does all the terrible things Mort wants to deny he has done himself. Shooter first appears and accuses Mort of plagiarizing his story because Mort did that years ago. He paid off the writer and denied that it ever happened again, but it haunted him. He became obsessed with that transgression and obsessed with his writing. The hat Shooter wore was a purchase Mort made years ago when he and Amy were still together. He adopted an accent and a backstory for the fictional character that would later torture him.

John Shooter is the personality Mort created to do all the violent things he couldn’t face doing. Still, he is also the realistic one who understands that he is a seriously ill man that shouldn’t be left free in society. The one good piece of Mort that still existed tried to get him to turn himself in before anyone else could get hurt, but it was too late. Mort is unhinged, and after he merges with Shooter the delusional side of him steps forward to believe everything is working out perfectly. This is why he acts so strangely to everyone in town and gets braces. Mort always viewed Shooter as a threat because he inherently knew this more dominant personality would take over if given a chance. Shooter would, in fact, be the death of him.

Where did Shooter come from?

It’s as simple as this. You can’t plagiarize from yourself. Mort couldn’t have stolen any story because Shooter never existed beyond his mind. When the stress of his impending divorce and a nasty case of recurring writer’s block plagued him, Mort snapped, and Shooter took over. Overcome with self-doubt for years, he always felt like a fraud. Regardless of how many stories and books were published, he never felt worthy, which is the seed from which Shooter grew.

Mort had anger issues, as witnessed by his attack on Amy and Ted when he caught them in bed together at the beginning of Secret Window. That was long before Shooter’s arrival but the rage was always there. This is why Mort says to Amy after he puts on Shooter’s hat that this was Rainey’s idea all along. The story in question was written long before anything happened between Amy and him, but it follows fairly closely their demise. The thing Shooter wants is for Mort to fix the story he accuses Mort of stealing. In the movie, this is what Mort had always seen coming. He knew he would probably lose Amy at some point, and he would want to kill her.

The alternate ending of Secret Window

The film ends with Mort eating the corn that grew above the decomposing bodies of Ted and Amy. His psychotic break was complete, and he was completely resigned to what he had done. The novella ends differently, though. Mort cannot kill Amy or bury her in the garden because he is stopped by a man just in time. Although this is a more satisfying ending, it isn’t as fun as the cinematic version.

Stephen King uses the idea of tortured writing and reader obsession in many of his stories. In Misery, Annie Wilkes holds Paul Sheldon hostage because she loves his series of books and snaps when he tells her he is killing off the lead character. Misery has become real for her, and the betrayal she feels destroys her grasp of reality. In Secret Window, Mort turns that torment inward until it can’t be contained anymore, and he projects the violence outward.