Alien and Aliens are often ranked very close together, and I think that gap is even smaller for 1962’s Cape Fear and the 1991 remake. The data gives a clear advantage to the remake, but for me they’re interchangeable. The 1962 version took Film Noir into dark and dangerous territory, mostly on the imposing shoulders of Robert Mitchum. The remake is more explicit, from Robert De Niro’s tattooed flesh to Martin Scorsese alternating between great character interactions and brutal gut punches of style. (Interestingly, in both films the actors push Max Cady’s trashy southern accent to cartoon levels.)
Usually, the advantage goes to the film that doesn’t go over-the-top, but the material supports Scorsese’s uncomfortable tone. It’s rare to see a Hollywood blockbuster with violence that is quick and graphic and a memorable scene that lingers on corrupting a teenage girl. And it just gets bigger by the end when it’s like Scorsese makes an apocalypse out of the final confrontation. You can hear how this approach creates the slightly superior version in the score, which uses the same theme as the original. In 1962, it’s just the introduction, but Scorsese uses it as a recurring theme to support his grand scale.
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