In this contemporary day and age, there are in fact many disappointing efforts in rehashing classic Hollywood movies. For most cases, many directors will apply special effects in order to outshine and elaborate the sense of reality, but ironically they usually never compare to the excitement of the original film. However, Martin Scorsese has an incredible approach in remaking a classic thriller when he reissued his own version of Cape Fear in 1991. Scorsese’s personal adaption was released exactly 29 years following the release of the original 1962 film of the same name, with the remake including several cameos of main actors from the original film. However, this review is aimed to analyze the amount of potential Hollywood remakes can have with a modern, impressionable audience who may be unfamiliar with the original production. The film stars Robert De Niro as Max Cady, a Southern, sociopathic rapist who has just been released from prison and is thirsty for terrorizing his former lawyer. As well, Nick Nolte stars as Sam Bowden, a successful attorney and former public defender living in the fictional, affluent town of West Essex, North Carolina (seemingly adjacent to the Cape Fear River although never emphasized) with his bitter wife, Leigh (Jessica Lange) and troublesome daughter, Danielle (Juliette Lewis).

Sam Bowden was once a public defender based out of Atlanta, Georgia although now works for a prestigious law firm in eastern North Carolina. When an uneducated Cady was convicted of raping a teenage girl, Bowden was appointed to represent Cady on the entitlement of legal defense for the accused. Due to poor legal representation, Cady internally vows revenge on Sam Bowden and his family. Specifically, Bowden possessed a report confirming the rape victim’s promiscuity, and such information could have Cady acquitted from such charges. However, due to some obscure conflict of morality, Bowden buried the document from the prosecution with self-assured protection due to his client’s illiteracy. After a 14 year sentence, Cady can now read while he surreptitiously and gradually terrorizes his former counselor.

In the original, Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) solely testifies against Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) in court for being an eyewitness to a rape incident that occurred in Baltimore, Maryland. Therefore, Scorsese justifies how much effort he applied to this remake in order to enhance the sense of fear (pun intended) for the exposed audience. As well, the original film portrays the family as a prosperous and non-dysfunctional unit. However, the remake focuses on the Bowden family problems that are causing the possible deterioration of the family’s stability; this includes Sam’s past infidelity, Leigh’s depression and Danielle’s rebelliousness. Therefore, Scorsese creates a more unstable family setting than the original, enhancing the idea that the family members are taking each other for granted on a daily, exacerbating basis.

These innovative changes introduced by Scorsese outlines that he sympathizes with the average American family, considering the fact that divorce, infidelity and domestic mistrust have become the normalcy for the common family structure of the 1990’s. Also, there are other relevant entities that help embellish the personality of some characters. For instance, Danielle is a skeptical, naïve teenager obligated to summer school enrollment after being caught with marijuana. Her bedroom posters elaborate both her personality and lifestyle, including famous music groups such as Megadeth, The Cure, Guns N’ Roses, and also a scene where she’s watching the Jane’s Addiction music video for “Been Caught Stealing” (a huge hit in 1990). These efforts are utilized in a very professional and experienced matter; considering the fact that the modern audience has some congruency in music taste with the youthful lifestyles of the supporting cast. Drawing a parallel between the interests of both the audience and characters is necessary, especially for the early 1990’s, when alternative rock, grunge, and heavy metal were highly popular music genres for Danielle Bowden’s Generation X demographic. In that sense, Scorsese was very creative and highly sympathetic to the interests and trends of younger American generations. Such decorative details are highly necessary in characterizing such roles that may have not included enough importance in the original 1962 movie.

Overall, Scorsese did an exceptional job at enhancing the possibilities behind a movie remake. Considering the original film did not follow the family problems as intimately as Scorsese did when he redeveloped the plot with a higher degree of suspense and characterization. The 1991 remake should assure American film enthusiasts that rehashing an older film can have incredible capabilities if the director can sufficiently rewrite the script in favor of their innovative ambitions. Although highly violent and frightening, Cape Fear is an incredible film that illustrates how a sadistic ex-con manages to intrude and encroach on the prosperity of a seemingly solidified family unit. Since the release of Truman Capote’s, In Cold Blood, the American film audience acknowledged that even the most common family can experience the most terrifying reality, given the nation’s cesspool of vengeful criminals who are hastily freed once the sentence is served. Cape Fear is another grim account of how innocent American families are justifiably fearful from such sinister human tendencies.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101540/

The 1960 Michael Powell film, Peeping Tom, demonstrates the compelling angle of how a psychological thriller transcends into a cinematic milestone. Personally, I am a zealous fan of suspenseful cinematic films within the horror and thriller genres, having been inspired by numerous Stephen King stories and Alfred Hitchcock’s works as well. However, Powell illustrated a more passive exploration behind the sinister nature of the protagonist or anti-hero, a more potentially necessary classification of the notorious Mark Lewis. Also, this film pacifies the audience by centralizing all action around the main character, regardless of his many episodes resulting in homicidal compulsions. I feel this technique was applied to the film with the intention of exploring how a clinically disturbed serial killer conceives such a violent modus operandi against women. Having said that, this film introduced a new concept worthy of rehashing for horror film profitability; this involved horrific violence implemented on attractive, young, helpless females as a cliché Hollywood tactic. Although this popular new trend amongst audiences may hold some undertones regarding misogynistic violence, these changes provoked both the appetites and expectations of cinematic audiences across the world.

The film explores the life of a deeply troubled man named Mark Lewis, a photographer and film-obsessed individual who constantly documents everything with a camera. Although the film portrays Mark as a peculiar and unassertive individual, Mark articulates many cryptic implications that he is psychologically damaged because of his father’s academic ambitions. Specifically, Mark mentions how his father was a biology professor who centralized his research goals behind putting a youthful human being under the constant surveillance from an active camera. Once this was mentioned, the essential confession of his background allowed the audience to process the concept that he will most likely grow up to be a paranoid, mentally ill member of society. Due to the abuse of his privacy in his early youthful development, it becomes clear that he is basically implying that the unknown experiences his turbulent childhood are the somber mystery behind his murderous desires. Ironically, even though his father’s desire for both academic prestige and new discoveries in the field of psychology, Mark’s disturbed existence was the ultimate consequence of such elite accomplishments. Therefore, the audience is forced into a state of virtual sympathy, without forgetting the fact that mark is a deviant murderer in need of both professional help and incarceration. Even though his father is nonexistent in this film, he serves as a contemptible scapegoat since his academically-praised research transformed his child into a monstrous individual.

Although Peeping Tom is an innovative demonstration of how a psychological thriller should be orchestrated, I felt this movie was not nearly as scary or frightening as other suspense films by the intention of Powell, respectively speaking. In this film, the directorial incentive appears to help explain why Mark’s dark lifestyle is rational to both himself and the audience, because we both have omniscient information regarding the killer’s intentions and past life. In comparison to the 1991 Jonathan Demme film, The Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer, colloquially nicknamed Buffalo Bill, is presented in a more frightening manner considering his modus operandi involves the torturous flaying of female skin in order to design clothing items resembling the female anatomy. As the FBI is on the search for this killer, they must collect and value all information regarding psychological abuse of serial killers targeting young women. In order to do a forensic analysis on such grotesque proclivities for serial killers, the FBI utilizes a young trainee to interrogate an imprisoned cannibal with possible information regarding the wanted suspect at large. In Peeping Tom, there is much less urgency because the plot focuses on both the gentle and harmful juxtaposing personality traits of the killer, Mark. As for The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster is on the screen for 80-90% of the film, and Buffalo Bill is only given a few snippets of his gloomy lair in his basement. Nevertheless, these two films show many dynamic behaviors behind the minds of cinematic serial killers, and how one is intended to be scarier and the other intended to be more educational per se.