This weekend, horror veteran Leigh Whannell’s next movie hits theaters. The Invisible Man, one of Blumhouse’s marquee joints for the year, is also one of the buzziest after a string of subpar horror flicks hitting theaters in the first two months of this year.
In Whannell’s modern reimagining of the classic H.G. Wells novel is a stark departure from the original 1933 film adaptation starring Claude Rains in the titular role. In Whannell’s version, the straightforward mad scientist story is transformed into a social commentary on abuse and trauma. Housewife Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) finally gains the courage to flee her abusive, stifling marriage. In the aftermath, her controlling, manipulative husband, Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) kills himself, leaving her a fortune that comes with strings attached. But as the days go by, Cecilia starts being tormented by an unseen stranger. While everyone around her is convinced she’s slowly going crazy, Cecilia becomes more certain that Adrian is still alive and has discovered a way to make himself invisible in order to punish her for leaving him. As the violence escalates, Cecilia grows desperate to uncover her ex-husband’s deceit and escape his control once and for all.
It’s a bold new take on an old story from a horror master. Does it deliver on all the thrills it promises? Read on for three reasons to see The Invisible Man when it hits theaters this weekend.
1. It Utilizes Interesting Camera Work In A Clever Way
There are plenty of words one could use to describe The Invisible Man, but perhaps the most accurate would be “voyeuristic.” Save for one brief moment toward the end, there isn’t a single scene that doesn’t involve Elisabeth Moss; you’re always watching her, always have your eye on her as her deeply intimate story unfolds. This sense of intimacy is enhanced by Stefan Duscio’s cinematography, an approach full of clever tracking shots that infer an invisible Adrian is hovering near Cecilia or pulling back and hiding against a wall as she walks past, standing in a doorway and staring at her or watching her through a window. First assistant camera Sally Eccleston deserves credit for some Herculean focus pulling, with the depth of field constantly shifting back and forth from Cecilia’s perspective to what we can imagine is Adrian’s standing behind her. Unseen to Cecilia, his presence is recognized by the viewer every time the camera suddenly shifts away from her POV to one that might belong to another person in the room.
The effect is deeply unsettling and deeply creepy. Mission accomplished. A creeping sense of guilt overcame me as I watched, so voyeuristic does it feel to study Cecilia so closely as the audience without her being aware of it. Or perhaps it was the unease that I felt as a woman who has heard strange footsteps behind her walking down the street at night, one who has more than one internet stalker. In an era rife with unseen, anonymous danger, the literal embodiment of unseen danger takes on a new, personal edge.
2. There’s Plenty Of Tension – And One Genuinely Shocking Moment
Depending on the next movie or two Whannell decides to thread on the charm bracelet of his resume, it could be argued that with Upgrade and The Invisible Man he’s becoming one of our finest sci-fi horror auteurs. He has an intuitive understanding of how technology can go awry and be used for nefarious purposes, but his roots are nonetheless firmly planted in horror, and there is tension by the bucketful in Invisible Man. I admit, there wasn’t ever a time I felt Cecilia was in true danger (at least, not the danger of death), but Whannell really drills down on the primal fear of fighting an opponent you can’t see, of blindness. In any other horror movie, you rarely worry about the negative space behind or in front of a character. If the monster isn’t there, they aren’t there – you’d see them if they were. But in a movie where the monster can be anywhere, even in the places he appears not to be, every scene elicits a stress response aided by a claustrophobic, strings-heavy score by Benjamin Wallfisch.
While the movie really depends on waxing and waning tension, there are a few “gotcha!” jump scares and one truly shocking moment that came out of nowhere, further underscoring the fact that a threat you can’t see can come for you at any time. In our all-media screening, it elicited a number of shocked gasps around the theater (myself included – I admit it, I’m a jumper). The visual effects aren’t necessarily revolutionary, but they’re utilized in effective ways to create legitimate scares, all with Whannell’s aforementioned intuitive weaving of scientific foundations into the most terrifying of events.
3. It Has A Lot To Say About How Women Are Viewed In The World
If The Invisible Man were to have a subtitle, it might be Gaslighting: The Movie or perhaps The Invisible Woman. In a week in which Harvey Weinstein was just found guilty of sexual assault after years of discrediting his accusers and Elizabeth Warren called out a longtime political pundit over defaulting to taking a man’s side over a woman’s, it feels relevant. It feels timely. It feels necessary. Not every woman has suffered physical abuse and implied sexual assault like Cecilia (though plenty have). Not every woman will recognize herself exactly in the nauseatingly tense opening scene of Cecilia fleeing her abusive partner in the dead of night, heart in throat and breath whistling, praying he doesn’t catch her because if he does, this time he might really kill her (though, again, plenty of women can). But virtually every woman can relate to her experience of being undermined by those around her, of our testimonies not being taken seriously. We’re too emotional or too fragile, or we remembered it wrong or we’re “making a big deal out of nothing” or it was “just a joke.”
The worst is when we experience this undermining of authority by well-meaning people in our life, those who should have our backs don’t. Whannell tackles this more insidious form of gaslighting in the form of Cecilia’s close friend, James (Aldis Hodge). James is – genuinely – a really good guy. He believes Cecilia when she talks about her abuse, he’s a good father, a good provider, an incredibly supportive friend to Cecilia when she leaves Adrian and patient with her PTSD-driven agoraphobia. But he also fails her when she confides in him her out-there theory about Adrian being invisible, defaulting, as so many people do, to questioning a woman’s mental stability rather than simply believing her. It’s a pointed moment that sends a clear message: Good men aren’t immune to the disease of devaluing women. In a masterstroke, he leaves the ending somewhat ambiguous, turning the camera on the audience and forcing us to examine whether or not we believe Cecilia completely or if there’s a seed of doubt in our mind about her version of events. Are we no better than the people around Cecilia?
All the above being said, there were points that I groaned aloud. The messaging is at times heavyhanded and needed a more nuanced touch. There is one subplot introduced late in the movie that actually found me blurting out a frustrated expletive under my breath, such was my exasperation with the tired trope of it all. Whannell deserves a lot of credit for the empathetic story he tells. Honestly, he tells it about as well as any male director ever could. But that’s exactly the problem – I couldn’t help but wonder as I watched how much more resonant the story might have been had those clunkier moments been written by a woman who had actually experienced the things Whannell wrote.
Still, Whannell does a hell of a job taking a 123-year-old story and retrofitting it for a modern era so that it feels fresh and relevant and necessary. If you’re looking for a tension-fueled thriller that doesn’t let up and has plenty to say, it’s definitely worth checking out this weekend.
The Invisible Man is in theaters Friday, February 28th. Get tickets here.
