The Invisible Man Movie Review: It Is A Terrifying Tribute The Visible Woman

Movie Review: The  Invisible Man

Starring: Elizabeth Moss, Olivia Jackson-Cohen

Directed  by:  Leigh Whannell

Rating: *** ½ (3 and a half stars)

 Even if you are  one  of those  diehard  pragmatists  who laugh through  horror movies,  The  Invisible Man scares the  hell out of  you.  It isn’t  about ghosts  and  mean spirits  from outside our universe. It tells  us that the  evil spirit  haunting you  through your  daily routine  could be  standing next to  you, or sleeping on the bed next to you.

 This  bloodcurdling drama  on the ramifications of domestic abuse opens with the strangely attractive Elizabeth  Moss seeking escape from her husband’s island bungalow which has multiple entry points  but no exit. As  Moss’s Cecilia passed through those must-connect-only-in-the-daytime gates I felt  a heartstopping anxiety  for her.

Would she escape?Where  would she  go? These questions were hurriedly answered as we  find out, to our dismay, there is no escape for Cecilia, as her  influential empowered  ‘dead’   husband follows  her  into life. There  is  a heartstopping dread at the core of this  tale of trauma and salvation.The  prevalent mood  is  of doom.

The  film’s  premise   originates  from H G Wells  but moves so far away  from the  original material that Wells would find this hard to recognize as his idea.

While the narrative introduces  the  main  protagonist as she  meticulously plans to escape from her husband in the dead  of the night  every heartbeart  is recorded in the visuals  and the soundtrack. That thump you hear in the adjacent room is  just your heart. The film’s immersive  quality is   so strong and  steep I often  found myself jumping  out of my skin whenever Cecilia felt her  brutal husband’s presence.

   Towards the  finale when  Cecilia finally confronts the demon from her past we finally get the  jolt that  the  film has been  building towards  so  confidently. Mid-way through the  film when we are  no longer sure  if Cecilia  is telling us the  truth the sudden death  of  a main cast member puts the  blush on  the  director’s shriek.

The  horror genre  has seldom been  used so  skillfully to convey an  individual’s  failure to  say  no to an unsavoury  relationship. True, the peripheral   characters hardly have any well-sketched moments. But Elizabeth  Moss with her glorious grimace shading every frame keeps you watching to the shattering end.  The  Invisible Man  marks some kind of benchmark  in the eerie genre  of cinema.