Be careful what you steal because it could come back to haunt you.

This is good advice for horrormeister Stephen King and the protagonist of his psychological thriller Secret Window.

In Secret Window, Johnny Depp plays Mort Rainey, a popular writer of thrillers who is in the throes of serious writer's block.

There are good reasons.

Mort's wife Amy (Maria Bello) has filed for divorce and has already fallen into the arms of new lover Ted (Timothy Hutton).

As part of the settlement, Amy has taken the couple's magnificent house in the city thus banishing Mort to their wilderness cabin.

This is bad news for Mort, but great news for thriller audiences because it makes Mort extremely vulnerable for what happens next.

A menacing stranger who calls himself Shooter (John Turturro) turns up at Mort's door to accuse the author of having stolen a short story about a man who contemplates killing his unfaithful wife.

The stranger is most furious because in his version the man kills the wife, but in Mort's version he can't bring himself to go through with the deed.

Shooter gives Mort three days to prove he didn't steal the story or to admit guilt and republish the story with the original ending and proper credit to Shooter.

A wilderness cabin and a stranger who looks like an avenging angel can only spell one thing. Somebody's not getting out of this story alive.

King used the same basic scenario in Misery with Kathy Bates as a stalker who menaces writer James Caan in his remote abode.

As Secret Window unfolds it becomes clear King also re-read his The Shining a few times in order to give Mort as many internal demons as the external one lurking in the woods outside his cabin.

This makes it a bit too easy to guess what's going to happen to whom and what some of the major twists will be.

What makes Secret Window both scary and amusing is Depp.

Once again he proves he is an actor of incredible range and fearless choices.

Mort's life is as dishevelled as his torn bathrobe and his wild unkempt blond locks. In the sliest of ways, Depp makes the man's battles with cigarettes, booze and the computer genuinely funny. Just watch his eyes and his self-mocking grin.

This is a clever device to keep the audience off balance so when Mort is sure Shooter is in his house, the terror Depp shows is all the more unsettling.

We like this funny, quirky scribe and don't want him to end up with say a screwdriver or hatchet in his head as is the case with other unfortunates who cross Mort and Shooter's paths.

David Koepp, who adapted the story and directed it, hasn't found a way to make the supporting characters as interesting or compelling as Mort and Shooter.

He gets great performances from Depp and Turturro but Bello, Hutton and Charles S. Dutton as the private-eye Mort hires, can't do anything with their thinly-written characters.

Secret Window is chilling and funny in proportion to what the viewer knows and, in this case, the less the better.

(This film is rated 14-A)

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