Cape Fear (1991)

Max Cady cackling through Problem Child with a lit cigar is the worst movie date ever filmed.

This was the movie I was too scared to watch as a kid. I remember picking it up at Blockbuster, staring at the box and deciding it was too adult for me. I put it back and never picked it up again. Now I’m back on my Scorsese kick, and I finally watched it.

It’s not my favorite Scorsese, but it’s the one where he seems to be having the most fun. He’s playing with Hitchcock and Brian De Palma here, all the way down to Bernard Herrmann’s score from the 1962 original, reworked by Elmer Bernstein. The camera work was a bit distracting, honestly, but I didn’t mind too much. It feels like him playing around more than usual, and I had fun playing along.

And Robert De Niro is the pulp. Max Cady is tattooed, Bible-quoting and absolutely unhinged, and De Niro plays him as an amazing psychopath who’s having a better time than anyone else on screen. He’s never scarier than when he’s laughing.

I wish they still made adult dramas like this. Big stars, a big studio, sex and menace and a family coming apart, made for grown-ups. I think if I’d watched this when I was nine it would have felt like the smartest, most adult film of all time. It probably would have been. Would I have been scared? Maybe a little. This time I just had fun.

Stray thoughts:

Nick Nolte, hot.

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