8 Horror Movies Where Only One Person Dies
7. Cape Fear
In the Martin Scorsese-helmed 1991 remake of Cape Fear, there's actually two deaths - the Bowden's housekeeper and Robert De Niro's Max Cady - yet the original 1962 adaptation of John D. MacDonald's The Executioners novel has just one solitary death.
That death is local cop Kezerk (Page Slattery), who is drowned by Bob Mitchum's insane Max Cady.
Where the '91 remake saw Cady himself seemingly drown at the end of the movie, that '62 offering has a different fate for the character. Instead of Sam Bowden giving in to temptation and allowing Cady to die, this Gregory Peck version of Bowden opts to dish out a fate deemed worse than death by Cady. That fate, of course, being the prospect of serving the rest of his days rotting in a prison cell.
While the 1962 Cape Fear only sees one person killed, that picture does have one other chilling moment in common with the '91 do-over - in that both films see Max Cady do the scumbag thing of killing the Bowden's faithful dog. And nothing in moviedom says 'utter bastard' quite like killing a beloved pooch.