Stepping into the shoes of psycho killer (qu’est-ce que c’est?) Max Cady is no mean feat. Over the years, a rare few have been called upon to play the vengeful felon from John D. MacDonald’s The Executioners: Robert Mitchum in 1962’s Cape Fear; Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake; and Dr. Robert Underdunk Terwilliger — aka Sideshow Bob — in The Simpsons all-timer ‘Cape Feare’. Now, in Nick Antosca’s Scorsese and Steven Spielberg produced new Apple TV take on Cape Fear, Javier Bardem is set to play the first non-Rob Cady, hell-bent on ruining the lives of attorneys Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom Bowden (Patrick Wilson). And you can check out Bardem in full creeper mode below;
Hoo boy — when Antosca described his Cape Fear as ‘a nightmare remix’ of past adaptations, he sure wasn’t kidding! As we see here, this Marty and Spielberg backed take on the iconic psychological thriller is leaning all the way into Cady’s crazy, with the Bowdens’ familial bliss immediately thrown into disarray when Bardem’s wild-eyed, heavily-tatted rocks up on the scene having been unexpectedly released from what should’ve been a lifelong stretch in the slammer. “Do we deserve all this?” asks Anna of she and her husband’s dreamy suburban life at the start of the trailer: “You deserve this,” comes Cady’s cold response as he closes in on the couple, leaving a trail of claret and panic in his wake. If the edit’s a little jarring and the teaser somewhat obtuse, the effect — of disorientating, intriguing, and alarming in equal measure — is pulled off with aplomb.
The official synopsis for Antosca’s Cape Fear reads: “Inspired by the 1991 remake directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Steven Spielberg, a storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom Bowden (Patrick Wilson) when Max Cady (Javier Bardem), the notorious killer they are responsible for putting behind bars, is let out of prison — and he wants vengeance.”
Will the new Cape Fear stick to the original formula or break ranks with some new twists and turns? Will there be an extended sequence in which this Max Cady steps on a load of rakes? Is Bardem destined to add another iconic psycho performance to his CV to sit alongside No Country For Old Men‘s Anton Chigurh, Skyfall‘s Silva, Pirates Of The Caribbean‘s Captain Salazar, and Lyle, Lyle Crocodile‘s mendacious Hector P. Valenti? We’ll find out when the first of Cape Fear‘s ten episodes debuts on Apple TV on 5 June.
