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If you haven't seen this film here's a quick recap: Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is the psycho who has recently been released from a 14-year turn at the big house. He has only a few things on his mind: kill Bart, do laundry and buy corn holders....er, I mean seek revenge on the defense lawyer who didn't quite do his best in representing Max, which resulted in his imprisonment. Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) is that defense attorney, and lives a quiet small town existence with his wife, Leigh (Jessica Lange), and daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis). Soon Max makes his presence known and a psychological cat and mouse thriller ensues.

This "updating" of a classic is fantastic. Scorsese masterfully wrings as much if not more suspense out of the material than the original, with a fresh take on a horror film as well. He deepens the relationships of the characters while at the same time creating more empathy and pathos for the psychopath. Scorsese does in Cape Fear what he does always best, place a bunch of multi-layered characters in the middle of severe situations. He is all about the words, which are hardly ever just talk, and such chit chat is usually lethal to a good thriller. But not here. And Scorsese's usual skill at creating atmosphere in remarkable fashion is able on display as well.

It is hard to compare this update to the original classic, but how can you go wrong with such a distinguished gathering of talent? Lange and De Niro garnered academy award nominations for their performances, as did Lewis her first time out. The rest of the cast includes cameos from the stars of the original film. Gregory Peck plays Cady's new lawyer, Robert Mitchum is a police detective and Martin Balsam portrays a judge. Another interesting twist on this film is that Scorsese had composer Elmer Bernstein adapt the original Bernard Hermann score, as opposed to writing a new one fro scratch. The effect is haunting, and this is one of the rare "reimaginings" to strike that perfect balance between old and the new.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Universal is getting pretty good at giving the competition a run for its money as far as quality discs go, and here they have put together a THX certified, 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer that is about as good as it gets. The film- like quality of the image is amazing. Colors leap off the screen and are perfectly rendered, with no noise, smearing or oversaturation (even some of Nick Nolte's terrible suits). Blacks are extraordinarily rich and deep, contrast dead on and detail amazing. This new remaster appears to have been taken from a new source print, which is ultra clean, with any blemishes, nicks and scratches all but absent. The only thing detracting from this near-reference quality transfer is a minimal amount of edge enhancement, but aside from that this is terrific.

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?

Universal has included both a DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks, and it appears that the DTS track is recorded at a higher level, so if it sounds louder, it is. The DTS mix has been encoded at 754 kbps, and the Dolby 448 kbps. Now, as good as the video is, you might expect that the audio would follow suit. Welp, this film actually only has a few scenes with big actiony-type effects, so the majority of surround use is limited to atmospheric effects and ambiance, such as heavy rain, crowd scenes or the score.

I used chapter 16 to directly compare the two mixes. This scene is towards the end of the film, as De Niro is roughing up the family in the big rainstorm sequence. DTS really outshone Dolby Digital, especially with directional effects. The slight nuances of smaller sounds and the falling of rain were reproduced with incredibly realistic clarity by the DTS track, but not so much with the Dolby track.. There isn't a great deal of a LFE channel here in the mix, but when present both tracks handled it well. Stereo separation and imaging across the front sound stage is good with both tracks, as is dialogue which sounds natural and well-anchored in the center channel, and ADR is nearly seamless. Both mixes will please, but the DTS track, as usual, wins by a nose with a tad more subtlety.

Also included are French and Spanish 2.0 surround dubs, as well as English Captions, though no true Closed Captioning.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

As for the disc, I have found it strange that no one on the web (even dealers/retailers) seems to know what this DVD is going to consist of. Yes, it has DTS. Yes, it is THX certified. Yes, it is a two-disc set. Yes, it is anamorphic. Yes, there are about a billion hours of special features. Yes, it rocks the Casbah.

Did I mention that this is a two-disc set? The second disc contains all of the nearly two hours worth of bonus material included. One rather rare feature is that you can select Spanish or French subtitles or closed captions for all of the extras. This is strange seeing how the film only contains English captions, but hopefully this is a sign that more studios will begin subtitling the extras as well as the main feature.

First up is the 80-minute documentary The Making Of Cape Fear, produced by Laurent Bouzereau. This is hardly the usual fluff featurette and pretty much makes up for the lack of a commentary track. It is comprised of the usual interviews with the cast and crew, including Scorsese, Nolte, Lange and Lewis, as well as screenwriter Wesley Strick, but the best way to describe this is as an intense, under-the-microscope look at the film. There is some minor behind the scenes footage, but it is mostly sparse, as are stills from the film. An added treat are additional interviews with the likes of Gregory Peck, Illeana Douglas and producer Barbara De Fina. An excellent documentary.

Also included are nine minutes of deleted scenes in non-anamorphic widescreen, with about 8 scenes total that were cut as well as trimmings from existing scenes in the film. Bouzereau also deserves kudos for producing two outstanding featurettes: Behind the Scenes of the Fourth of July Parade is two minutes of shots of the crew and filmmakers filming this scene fantastically edited in with the actual footage by Jeffrey Gross. On the Set of the Houseboat is a very similar look at the effects shots during the climatic fight scene and runs for just under two minutes. Both of these extras do not include any commentary or interviews, but aren't needed, anyway. Both are ultra cool.

Next up are three photo montages - "The Physical Transformation of Robert De Niro's Max Cady," "The Cast of Cape Fear" and "Martin Scorsese Directs Cape Fear" - which you can access individually or via the "play all" function. The first and second combine stills, movie footage and music whilst the third is just stills and footage. There is a neat little look at some of the painted background effects in a selection labeled Matte Paintings. Three scenes are shown in a series, with the original "plates" followed by the finished shot from the film. Finally, we have Opening Credits, which is a collection of cool opening credit sequences by Saul Bass, including Vertigo, Psycho, Spartacus and Casino, and runs for twelve minutes.

Rounding out the supplements is the film's theatrical trailer in a non-anamorphic widescreen and 2.0 stereo, along with several pages of production notes which are a bit superfluous after the massive making-of feature, but are nice nonetheless. Last but not least we have the usual filmographies, which highlight the careers of the main cast and Scorsese.

Parting Thoughts