Remaking a classic is a bold move that’s proven to be foolish on a number of occasions, but when one of the greatest directors in history decides to partner up with one of the silver screen’s finest talents for a seventh time to reinvent Cape Fear, then who’s going to argue?
As you’d expect given their previous collaborations, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro brought their respective A-games to the updated spin on the 1962 original, which was already held up as a top-tier psychological thriller in its own right. De Niro and Juliette Lewis landed Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominations at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes for their efforts, with their unsettling dynamic powering a phenomenal dive into the psyche of a truly terrifying villain in the form of Max Cady.
Over 30 years later and the traumatizing tale is still proving its worth to modern audiences, with Cape Fear V2.0 having taken the iTunes Top 10 hostage in several countries around the world, per FlixPatrol. Nick Nolte’s attorney gets a whole lot more than he bargained for when he prevents convicted felon Cady from being acquitted, only for the sex offender to hold a grudge for the entirety of his 14-year prison stretch – one he plans to resolve the second he gets free.
There wasn’t much need for Cape Fear to be subjected to the remake treatment, but everyone who saw the end product was definitely glad that it was. It’s debatable as to whether or not it exceeds J. Lee Thompson’s OG, but it’s unquestionably the more famous of the two, and even inspired one of the best episodes of The Simpsons for good measure.