'Pure malevolence': How Cape Fear's psychopath Max Cady became one of America's all-time greatest villains

A new TV take on the classic thriller is dominated once again by its monstrous antagonist, here played by Javier Bardem. Here's why he's such an unforgettably terrifying figure.

Few bad guys in US culture have left quite as terrifying a mark as Max Cady – the vengeful psychopathic criminal who was first introduced in John D MacDonald's 1957 thriller novel The Executioners. Cady blames attorney Sam Bowden for testifying against him as a witness in a rape case, and getting him put in prison for over a decade. And, once he is released, he takes revenge on Bowden by menacing him and his family. MacDonald describes him as a "black thing loose in the world". 

Since then, Cady has been immortalised on screen in two revered film adaptations – J Lee Thompson's 1962 version, evocatively retitled Cape Fear, and Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake of the same name. In these he was memorably played by Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro, respectively. Now comes the first small-screen Cape Fear, a new 10-part series for Apple TV, executive produced by Scorsese, with Javier Bardem filling his malevolent shoes.

Throughout these different iterations, Cady has come to symbolise something profound in American life – an anti-establishment threat towards the suburban family unit and the very legal systems that govern American civilisation. Yet at the same time, the story and Cady himself have gone through an evolution. As Nick Antosca, the showrunner for the new series, puts it: "Cape Fear is the story about an all-American, safe, privileged family that is terrorised by an outsider, a monster in all versions. But the nature of the family and the nature of the monster is different in every version – and in the 2020s everything is more complicated."

The character's first incarnation

In the original novel, indeed, things are far more simple: Cady is presented as a savage predator whose violent psychopathy is exacerbated by his family history of crime, his wife's desertion of him while in prison, and his son's death. Yet MacDonald leaves no ambiguity about the antagonist's guilt or his remorseless sadism, as he terrorises the righteous Bowden, who witnessed Cady commit sexual assault as his lieutenant during World War Two. Bowden's family symbolises to Cady everything he has lost, and he stalks them while cannily avoiding doing anything that could get him arrested, underscoring the fragility of the legal system.

When it came to the 1962 film, Mitchum's Cady was stripped of almost all backstory to create an even simpler film noir revenge plot. Mitchum, already known for his roles as bad apples in films like The Track of the Cat (1954) and The Night of the Hunter (1955), exudes a cool charisma that was familiar to audiences and a laconic, Southern Gothic menace.

"He's like the proto hippie and American rebel character," says Michael Arnzen, author and professor of Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University, who explored the changing depiction of Cady in his essay Cape Fear and the Hollywood Remake as Metanarrative Discourse. By giving Cady a non-conformist "beatnik" characterisation and juxtaposing him with Gregory Peck's conservative Bowden, the film reflected the mainstream anxiety at the time towards individuals who rejected traditional values.

Scorsese's 'over the top' Cady

Twenty-nine years later, De Niro would take a maximalist approach to his performance as Cady, creating with Scorsese another indelible portrayal of warped masculinity to stand alongside his Raging Bull, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver roles. "De Niro's performance was so over the top," says Arnzen. "It's comedic and........

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