Amy Adams as defence attorney Anna Bowden in a still from “Cape Fear” (2026).Apple Tv/Supplied
At one point in the new series adaptation of Cape Fear, beleaguered defence attorney Anna Bowden pauses on the stairs, paralyzed with dread. She’s surrounded by a pastoral landscape, as though she’s just stepped out of a John Constable painting – albeit one steeped in Southern Gothic atmosphere.
In AppleTV+’s psychological thriller, ex-convict Max Cady (Javier Bardem) stalks the lawyer’s family after Anna, played by Amy Adams, failed to keep him out of prison. The sumptuous Bowden home and its striking scenic murals feature in every episode and offer lessons on how to create mood through interior design.
What to watch this weekend: Another fun and easy Mindy Kaling rom-com, plus thriller Cape Fear
Emmy-nominated production designer Jamie Walker McCall (Feud) explained that series creator and showrunner Nick Antosca fell in love with the large Italian Renaissance revival house they used for exterior shots of the Bowden’s Savannah home. Inside, the task was using decor to create backstory and a suspenseful, hothouse atmosphere.
“I wanted to make it a little cat-and-mouse – you can go completely around in the entire set,” she said of opening up the floor plan when transposing the home’s footprint to construct the set.
In the show, the Bowdens are in the midst of a remodel. “I told myself that they hired a designer who then was going to do a more affluent, old-money Savannah,” said McCall.
The emotional tenor of the story called for dark, rich and saturated tones. In keeping with historic Savannah interiors, an antique landscape image was wrapped up and around the staircase to give it “a very iconic Lowcountry vibe,” McCall said of the coastal area in Georgia known for its salt marshes and Spanish moss-draped oaks.
Scenic murals feature throughout the home: tropical in the kitchen, classical and painterly in the foyer and contemporary in the bedroom of the Bowdens’ daughter, Natalie. In a way, the house is as tattooed as Cady’s skin. The murals are also part of the production designer’s imagined backstory for Anna: As someone who doesn’t come from money, posited McCall, she associated them with wealth growing up.
Statement Scenery
In an era dominated by algorithmic taste-making, large-scale landscape walls offer an antidote to homogeneous, generic interiors.
Decorators such as Kit Kemp, Young Huh and Chloe Redmond Warner all feature scenic murals in their latest design monographs. As co-founder and creative director of Firmdale boutique hotels in London and New York, Kemp often uses bold murals in her hospitality and commercial projects to dramatic effect. In residential settings, the vistas strike a balance between maximalism and serenity.
A scenic mural from the cover of Young Huh’s first book.Supplied
Huh is actor Zooey Deschanel and Property Brothers host Jonathan Scott’s designer. She lined the corridor of their Manhattan duplex with a scenic mural that makes a statement while also being a respite from pattern elsewhere.
She traces the origin of the expressive, hand-painted trees, peach blossoms, tigers and magpies in her own home’s murals to minhwa – the Korean folk-art tradition of storytelling – and offers contemporary iterations with luxury wallcovering purveyor Fromental.
Where the Wild Things Are
A renewed interest in painterly landscapes may signify a cultural shift. Much as the Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the digital age is reshaping values and spurring a craving for nature and organic motifs.
The visual theme of foliage and fauna in Cape Fear creates an immersive storybook environment. Expansive kitchen windows bring in the lush greenery beyond, blurring the distinction between inside and outside. The effect is that the Bowden family, despite a state-of-the-art security system, feels unprotected.
“It was definitely deliberate,” McCall said. “I wanted it to feel like somebody was lurking around every single corner.”
As the story becomes more nocturnal, dramatic lighting alters the appearance of the murals and passing shadows create a sense of unease. “Light plays a huge part in Savannah, because there’s so much dappling through the windows, with the Spanish moss and the live oaks. It really creates something,” said McCall.
There’s a sense of nature encroaching, intrusions of wildlife; a panther in the wallpaper in Anna and Tom’s bedroom, for instance, parallels the sighting of a wildcat on the property. Later, an exotic bird in the kitchen’s mural becomes integral to a plot twist. “The specific detail was not in the original script,” McCall said. “Actually that was written because of that wallpaper.”
A design from Canadian wallpaper company Urbanwalls. Advances in printing have made hand-painted murals more accessible.Supplied
Do Try This At Home
Advances in printing technology have made hand-painted murals more accessible. Urbanwalls founder Danielle Hardy, who channels her background as a graphic designer into creating wall treatments, has seen an uptick in demand.
“Maybe because for so many months we can’t really go outside, we bring those elements in,” Hardy said. She’s noticed residential clients moving away from single accent-wall murals toward full-room wraps like those in Cape Fear.
A wallpaper design from Urbanwalls.Supplied
“If you are going to invest in a landscape mural, that will be the main experience of the room,” she said. Manufactured in B.C. and custom fit, Urbanwell murals range from $399 for a single wall and up to $2,500 for a full-room wrap (urbanwalls.ca). Tapestry, with its canvas-inspired texture, is the company’s most popular mural, with Tuscan Landscape a close second. Whether based in Michigan, Ontario or B.C., clients are also requesting customization, such as scenes that depict trees native to their areas.
“Canadians are in their houses more than probably anywhere else in the world and want to make it the place they love to be in year-round,” Hardy said. “There’s an emphasis on home decor now being an immersive experience that makes it special and a safe haven.” For some, perhaps. For the Bowden family, less so.
