Cape Fear Psychological Review
...one the crime, and had previously beaten the system two other times, Sam felt he should go to jail. Unfortunately, for Sam, Cady learned to read in prison. He educated himself so much that he learned the law. It was in this process that Cady learned the truth about what Sam had done. While Max Cady may have suffered from a Sexual Disorder at the time of his raping's, he displays more of signs of depression when he is out of prison. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Forth Edition, Cady would have suffered from the sexual disorder known as sexual sadism. This disorder takes place over a time where there Cady acted out his sexual urges with his victims in which he caused them physical suffering. The second part to the disorder is acting out ones urges with a non-consenting person. All of which Max Cady did with his prior victims. The disturbing part about him is that he never showed remorse for what he had done. After serving fourteen years for these crimes, Cady comes out of prison to seek more punishment on others. His next victims are Sam, his wife Leigh, and daughter Danny. Fourteen years after Sam Bowden allowed his client Max Cady to go to prison, this man was back to haunt him. Cady managed to get in and out of Sam’s house. He poisoned the family’s dog, causing him to die. Soon after the incident, Cady showed up at the Bowden’s home with the dog’s collar. He presented the collar to Leigh, and it was not until after she had talked to him for a bit, did she realize who he was. On the day that he talked to Leigh, he saw Danny, Leigh and Sam’s 16-year-old daughter. That night Cady called Danny’s phone pretending to be her teacher. He set up a place for her to meet him, the whole time she thought that he was her new drama teacher. The next day, she went to meet him, and it was not until he started to come onto her, did she realize that Cady was not her teacher. Unlike her mother and father, Danny seemed to enjoy Cady’s presence. Max Cady shows signs of depression at the time that he is doing this because he is so upset that he had to waste so much of his life behind bars. He is determined to make Sam suffer. The first time in which Max Cady really strikes at Sam, is when he beats, rapes, and bites the cheek of Sam’s mistress, Lori. Cady pretends to be interested in her, and gets her into bed with him. Although he has not been with a woman for years, he chooses to violate Lori, and beat her, rather than make love to her. The satisfaction that he gets from it almost seems psychotic. While this seems like a drastic step for Cady to take, just to spite Sam, it just shows signs of his sexual disorder, sexual sadism. This crime being so sick is just the beginning. Max Cady is not even close to getting back at Sam. Making sure that Sam suffers becomes Cady’s job. It is almost as if he shows signs of compulsive disorder. Cady goes through great lengths to torture Sam and his family. He breaks into his house, while the family is home, and kills the house cleaner and private investigator that is hired to kill Cady. When Sam and his family try to escape to there houseboat, Cady straps himself to the bottom of their car so that he can get his vengeance. He manages to stay on the bottom of the car, throughout the whole journey. This just displays more signs of compulsive disorder. Towards the end of the movie, Cady gets on the houseboat and beats up Sam. Right when he is about to attack Leigh and Danny, Danny ...