Watching the latest interpretation of an oft-adapted work, there’s a certain temptation to try to get ahead of the story. To identify the familiar beats, to spot the new twists. I’ve watched the two cinematic versions of Cape Fear and read the 1957 novel they adapted, The Executioners. So I get it. Nevertheless, I would urge you to resist that with AppleTV’s newest take on the tale.

For one, it’s just more fun to take the ride. Creator Nick Antosca’s version is, if nothing else, quite the ride. For another, Cape Fear 2026 makes a lot of feints towards new and surprising choices. Ultimately, though, the story eventually narrows back to the norm. So guessing is a lot of waste energy. That’s not to say there aren’t twists and turns, just that early on, the series plays at being a far looser, arguably thornier exploration of the work than its predecessors.

As for what those twists and turns are, well, AppleTV has a long list of embargoed plot developments and moments. It is so extensive as to make all but the most bare bones plot description impossible. As a result, this review will be light on plot, deep on vibes.

After serving 17 years of a considerably longer sentence, Max Cady (Javier Bardem) leaves prison thanks to some revelatory evidence vacating his conviction. He begins to pop up in the lives of his attorney, Anna Bowden (Amy Adams, ladled with brittle Southern charm), her husband, Tom (Patrick Wilson), and their children, Zack (Joe Anders) and Natalie (Lily Collias). Not so coincidentally, their lives start to aggressively spin out of control at the same time.

It is not unfair to call the Martin Scorsese-directed 1991 Cape Fear gloriously trashy. It is Southern Gothic, positively saturated with style and gleefully squeamish violence. The series follows in its footsteps through the eight episodes provided to critics. However, its considerable bombast feels more like work than giddy indulgence. The use of photonegative images, color saturation, the logo as a wipe, and Jeff Russo’s bruisingly unsubtle score are attention-grabbers for sure. Doing the most usually is. Too often, though, they feel like putting too many exclamation points at the end of a sentence that doesn’t need it. It’s as though, knowing it can’t compete with Scorsese’s mastery of imagery, it opts to be as loud and pushy as possible.

The show can’t seem to nail down its interpretation of Cady. Part of this is by design. Cady is a master manipulator. But some efforts at giving him depth feel earnest. However, they never feel integrated. Each time the series breaks away to offer us some insight into the man, often through black-and-white flashbacks, the choices feel like wild shifts. Cape Fear itself can’t seem to maintain the dialectical view of the character it is trying to sell to the audience.

That’s where Bardem’s performance comes in. Whatever flavor of Cady the show is deploying at any given moment, the actor commits to it with considerable zeal. Seductive, scary, frightened, petulant…he makes it all work. No one is erasing Robert Mitchum’s cold menace or Robert DeNiro’s cackling sociopathy. Still, Bardem has crafted a Cady that can stand alongside them as an equally impressive interpretation of the character.

That’s more or less the story of Cape Fear overall. The performances save the project. Adams gives Anna a thin-skinned sharpness that suggests a woman who’s been a bit at odds with life before Cady’s reappearance. There are some near-silly things the show puts in her lap. Nonetheless, she makes them feel honest. She has an overcomplicated backstory that she wears well. Each new reveal is too much. And yet, thanks to her performance, the audience will respond with a, “Well, that makes sense.”

Wilson, America’s leading portrayer of married men bedeviled by the specter of infidelity—his or someone else’s—gets a pretty flat draw in the character of Tom. Instead of accepting that or parking it in the cheap seats, though, he digs in. Like his wife, he wears their current privileged life with a sense of unease. For her, it’s a case of it never fitting quite right. For him, it’s more that he can’t shake it always being on the edge of slipping away. He’s a fixer who finds that he might not have a bottom when it comes to how far he’ll go to hold on to what’s his.

If anything, the kids have even harder roles to deliver. Anders, in particular, has to take Zack out of reality without devolving into a cartoon. No easy feat. Still, he wields this glassy-eyed vacant stare and hair-trigger temper with skill. I was nearly going to say he’s the second scariest character in the show, but there’s a pileup to claim that title. Collias’ Natalie mirrors the Bowden patriarch’s struggle with the added spice of being a teen suddenly on the outs with her peers. Teenage resentment is a volatile force, and it has Natalie unraveling as she tries to reconcile her fears and wants with her role as the designated “good kid”. It’s all a lot, but the two actors are never the cause when things don’t work.

For this critic, Cape Fear is one of those must-sees not because it is great but because it is so very much. It is the kind of effort that some will fall in love with its maximalism immediately, while others will bounce off of it hard. I remain stubbornly a fence-sitter, devouring each episode like a midnight snack while looking askance. Over and over, struggling to answer, “Is this good or is it just compelling?” May the North Carolina swamplands provide you with the answers I can’t.

Cape Fear takes the boat out to AppleTV starting June 5.

Cape Fear Trailer: