1240th movie, 197th from the 1990s, 335th on Prime

Rating: 6/10

Distraction rating: 5/10

Plot armour rating 8/10

Rewatch rating: 3/5, annual for Halloween

Still nowhere near as good as the original as Nick Nolte and Robert Deniro do not compare to Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. However, Juliette Lewis captured that weird sexual intensity of someone being hunted by a predator.

This movie tries hard to be a psychological thriller but falls short. Succeeding slightly more than Basic Instinct tried a year later.

The movie drips with toxic people, mostly toxic men, but the leads wife is an enabler of her husbands toxic traits. Honestly, the perfect family to get stalked by a crazed Robert Deniro.

There are no good guys in this movie. Everyone is to some level reprehensible. You do not walk away from this movie feeling sorry for the shit that befalls people.

I feel a little bad for the woman Cady rapes, but I was also frustrated by the massive red flags he dropped. There was nothing charming about Cady in this movie, unlike Robert Mitchum, now there was a charismatic Cady.

The one good but short-lived bit of chemistry in the movie comes from the less than comfortable interaction between Cady and Danielle. The sexual predator versus prey was extremely well played out, especially considering the extremely toxic home life she came from. Honestly, it also made me wonder how she might be sexualised from her own father. She is definitely more possession to him than daughter.

The “Happy Ending” of this movie is that Cady dies. That the family will have decades of PTSD to deal with, and Danielle’s sexuality will likely go unchecked.

Happy ending indeed.