Rish Outfield's reviews
First things first, as I had never seen the original Cape Fear, I had to wonder going in, Is this Horror?
Gregory Peck plays Sam Bowden, a big-shot lawyer in Savannah, Georgia. A decent, honourable man who is hounded by Max Cady (Robert Mitchum), a rapist he convicted eight years before. Cady blames Peck for all the miseries he's suffered (including the family that left him while on the inside) and decides to destroy everything Peck has, eventually culminating in his life.
Mitchum plays one of the most evil characters I've seen in film. He is arrogant and truly menacing. He shacks up with a girl, beats her up, and makes her afraid to testify. Martin Balsam plays the police chief, a friend of Peck's. Telly Savalas is a private investigator (with hair!) hired by Peck to keep tabs on Cady. Nancy, the daughter character is very young (regardless of her budding body) and that someone would threaten her is appalling to an audience. How would an audience of forty years ago react? The word "attack" is used in place of "rape," but still, the threat he intends to Peck's wife and daughter is unmistakable and chilling. The subject matter is surprisingly harsh and mature for a film from back then. Of course, it was shot in black and white, which makes it seem older than it is.
Cape Fear was/is a VERY good movie, very tense, scary, probably less so now than then, but still powerful. One of the little triumphs of this film is that Peck's character remains as (or more) interesting as Mitchum's. Usually the straight man is the thankless role, the one nobody notices or much cares about. Produced by Gregory Peck, the film was well-shot and well-lit, especially the night scenes at the end. It has a clever, complex plot and big, bold music by Bernard Herrmann. It was more satisfying than the over-the-top, big-budget, high-profile remake (by Martin Scorsese), probably because it wasn't any of those things.
A film doesn't have to feature ghosts, undead, aliens, or masked madmen to make it onto these pages, as Cape Fear testifies. Again, the Skulls tell a story. Yeah, even though this is a suspense film, a drama, a mystery, it's Horror too. You'd call it Horror too, if it happened to you.

Total Skulls: 6

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears		Telly Savalas
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?