SURPRISE! "The Invisible Man" is good
Surprise! "The Invisible Man" is pretty good. It's not 90% on Rotten Tomatoes good but is far better than one would expect from yet another monster movie remake. Much of this can be attributed to Elisabeth Moss' performance as Cecilia. Pulling from her usual bag of hysterics, Moss screams, cries, and claws her way into another depressive performance reminiscent of her work from "Her Smell." Cecilia goes beyond the standard abuse victim role into something far more real, rendering an engrossing picture than I could not have anticipated. For the first time in a while, I watched a classic horror film that managed to not only scare me but also left me intrigued by its plot.
Director Leigh Whannell wastes no time throwing us into the action right out of the gate. Cecilia is sleeping next to her abusive partner Adrian. (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). They live together in a remote beachside mansion topped with an elaborate science lab resting in the basement. The sound of the waves outside in the opening credits introduces a booming sense of anxiety. Sneaking out of bed, Cecilia begins her flee towards freedom. Long after her escape from Adriann's prison, a ghostly figure continues to haunt Cecilia despite the evidence that Adriann has indeed died sometime after she had left his property. Everyone perceives Cecilia to be crazy except for the audience, of course. Moss sells her character's desperation beautifully as she always does. There isn't quite an actress who can encompass misery quite like her. Being the nihilist that I am, there was a part of me that wanted Adriann to doom Cecilia towards the end of the picture, making him the ultimate winner. We rarely get to see the bad guy win. Here was a chance for filmmakers to take that risk, which could have made for a captivatingly original remake that wouldn't leave you far after the credits roll. When the film does switch gears towards its third act, it consciously stops being a horror film turning itself into a race to the clock thriller. The transition between thematic elements flows relatively well, where it could have quickly fallen apart.
The scare factor works in the film's use of minimalism. What we don't see is what scares us the most. Remember when found footage films were the hottest horror flicks to check out? Everything from "The Blair Witch Project" to the "Paranormal Activity" series took off like hotcakes. And the thing that they all shared in common was how little they showed. The less you reveal, the hungrier the crowd gets. Whatever is left to the imagination is what will scare you the greatest. This minimalistic approach for the first half of the movie is genuinely frightening, yet it is, unfortunately, undercut with cheap jump scares. Luckily the jump scares are not used to a great extent in the movie. When it is fully revealed what that invisible thing is, we aren't scared anymore. It seems Leigh Whannell was aware that would happen, so he opted to go the gun-ho route for the better half of act three where Cecilia blasts her way to freedom in what can only be described as a hybrid of “Hollow Man" and The T1000 from "Terminator 2."
What makes "The Invisible Man" sell itself above other horror remakes is its themes of abuse. Cecille was Adriann's punching bag throughout their relationship. For most victims, trauma never leaves them even when that person is removed from the victim's lives. Despite everyone trying to help that person move one, there may never be a way for them too. That monster will always haunt them, in life or death. The element of trauma is displayed in a realistic manner where we aren't just watching another horror film where the audience is marking time for the killer to pop up on screen to take on his next victim. We become invested in Cecilia's path to recovery; we care about the people in her life who are trying to help her instead of waiting for their characters to be murdered. When the ending moment happens in the film, we aren't sure if we should root for Cecila or condemn her. It's an emotionally involved ending that I'm torn about. Dramatically it works, but logically it's banal.
If it weren't for playing everything too close by the book of horror film and thriller conventions, I suppose I would have enjoyed "The Invisible Man" far more than I did. To not give much away, I was hoping the film wouldn't have wound up on such an illogical note. Secondly, I wish it could have played with the silence of its scares more tactically rather than giving us the "BOO!" moments it does. There's a pleasant callback to the original 1933 film that didn't have a scary sound to it but yet was ten times more terrifying than any of the "GOTCHA" moments the movie had to offer. It was a moment that felt a bit closer to H.G. Wells' novel in a visual sense. Still, this is a thoroughly enjoyable picture that may require some repeat viewings to see where many of its plot twists were poking its hints at. "The Invisible Man" is best not to go unnoticed.
*** out ****
