Movie Review: Elisabeth Moss captivates in freaky remake of The Invisible Man – WTOP

This week, we get a gripping remake of H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man." WTOP's Jason Fraley shares his thoughts on the new film.

WTOP's Jason Fraley reviews 'The Invisible Man'

When you think scary movies, most people think Halloween, but Hollywood has recently rolled out a welcome trend of horror surprises this time of year.

In 2017, Get Out delivered the most symbolic social satire of the decade.

In 2018, A Quiet Place made audiences terrified to make a sound in the theater.

And last year, Us featured a chilling double performance by Lupita Nyongo, though the half-baked script could have used another rewrite to give the premise more punch.

This week brings a gripping remake of H.G. Wells The Invisible Man, which originally starred Claude Rains in 1933 alongside Boris Karloffs Frankenstein, Bela Lugosis Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr.s Wolf Man in Universals monster-movie stable.

You have to see it to believe it, but its a rare remake that actually works, chilling in all the right ways and infusing enough modern sensibility for our current social climate.

The film followsCecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss), who leaves her wealthy but abusive scientist boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen).When Adrian suddenly takes his own life, Cecilia inherits his fortune as she goes to live with her sister (Harriet Dyer), their childhood friend (Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter (Storm Reid).

However, a series of freaky occurrences causes Cecilia to believe her ex is somehow back from the dead, stalking her as an invisible man.Is she losing her own sanity? Is she struggling to cope with her new life? Or is something far more sinister at play?

Such a film only works on the strength of its casting, and Moss is the perfect choice. After iconic roles in TVs Mad Men and The Handmaids Tale, she has gradually hit the big screen in the indie gem The One I Loved (2014), a standout performance in the lackluster The Kitchen (2019) and a small part as the neighbor in Us (2019).

In The Invisible Man, shes a tour de force, eyes darting with a thousand-yard-stare of PTSD. Even under duress, she fights back with physical and mental strength, often ahead of the men on the police force, as she matches wits with the Invisible Man.

To put it another way, she has more lines than all the female roles in The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood combined.Granted, most of the dialogue involves her ex, but the script passes the Bechdel Test in a touching college tuition discussion with Wrinkle in Time alum Reid, offering her a ladder to success.

Its a lighter moment from filmmaker Leigh Whannell, who wrote and starred in the original Saw (2004). You can cynically blame him for launching the torture porn subgenre as a poor mans Se7en (1995), but he did introduce the iconic villain Jigsaw (still going nine films later) while inspiring a cultural phenomenon of escape rooms.

After moving behind the camera to direct thehorror flicks Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) and Upgrade (2018), Whannells Invisible Man makes him a force to be reckoned with, thanks to the blessing of producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions.

Right from the opening sequence, Whannell shows a keen eye for the slow disclosure of key images. A womans eye opens on a bedroom pillow.A blanket pulls back to reveal a mans hand on her belly. A pill bottle sits at the ready under the mattress.

AsMoss tiptoes out of bed, we hold our breath in the audience, just like we did in A Quiet Place, only this time with a swanky mansion similar to Big Little Lies, creating a foreboding backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

As the film unfolds, the pacing provides slow-burn suspense amid expertly-timed jump scares.The camera pans around empty rooms, lurches down hallways and peers through doorways, making our eyes scan the entire frame for a potential Invisible Man.

Sure, the premise requires a certain suspension of disbelief, but its presented in a way that feels logical to the characters, allowing us to go along for the ride. The gimmick borders on becoming over the top as a floating gun decimates an entire police force during the climax, but it still packs plenty of twists and a deliciously nasty resolution.

It also thankfully scraps the salacious voyeurism of Kevin Bacon in Paul Verhoevens Hollow Man (2000).Instead, we get a 21st century examination of gaslighting, domestic abuse and stalker exes that captures the zeitgeist of the #MeToo era. Its a more realistic Fifty Shades of Grey, with Adrian an equally perverse Christian Grey.

The end result is a welcome departure from Universals original plan of a Dark Universe franchise with Johnny Depp in The Invisible Man, Russell Crowe in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Javier Bardem in Frankenstein and Tom Cruise in The Mummy.

When the terrible Mummy flopped, Universal canned creators Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan and decided to make stand-alone films rather than an interconnected universe.This is always a much better approach for quality filmmaking, as even the most successful examples (i.e. Marvel) cant help but inherently lower the stakes.

The jury is still out on where Universal will go from here with its modern monster movie slate, but for now, this Invisible Man is a gripping one-off that no one saw coming perhaps because we cant see it at all.

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Movie Review: Elisabeth Moss captivates in freaky remake of The Invisible Man - WTOP

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero