SPOILERS FOR A MOVIE STILL IN THEATERS
I LIKED THIS ONE SO NOT GONNA SPOIL THE ENDING
Blumhouse Productions is kind of all over the place in terms of movie quality. On one hand they produced Fantasy Island and Glass, but on the other we get actual good films like Get Out and the latest adaptation of The Invisible Man.
In the original 1933 The Invisible Man, Dr. Jack Griffin discovered mad science that turned him invisible and drove just as mad. In the latest incarnation we have Adrian Griffin, although he’s largely absent from the movie. Well… largely invisible, but still. Throughout the film the camera cuts to otherwise empty shots, making us believe the nothingness is a character; that even though we can’t see him, he’s there. The movie The Autopsy of Jane Doe does a similar thing where it cuts to the body enough times that we the audience start to think of her as an actual character, and for me it’s a trick that works well in both movies.
But our main character is Cecelia, played by Ms. Elisabeth Moss. She’s wonderful in this, playing a woman trying to move on from an abusive relationship and being gaslighted by her supposedly dead–and now invisible–ex. Oh, he’s very much not dead, as anyone who saw the trailer would assume. This isn’t a psychological thriller where we question whether Cecelia is losing her mind, but instead it’s a film about a sociopath finding a new and terrifying way to torture the only woman who has left him.
If it wasn’t clear already, this movie has the potential to trigger people who have been through (or currently are in) an abusive relationship. Our invisible antagonist goes to extreme lengths to attack Cecelia, matching the pervasive tone best summed up by this quote: “He said that wherever I went, he would find me, walk right up to me, and I wouldn’t be able to see him.” For some people that’s too real and too much, and I can’t fault anyone for that. This is a good horror movie, but viewer discretion is heavily advised.
Follow Me Elsewhere
Pingback: The Mummy (2017) | Chwineka Watches