Clear to see reboot is bursting with creativity
Another week, another horror movie – but thankfully this one is actually good!
When Universal put a stake through the heart of its planned Dark Universe following the critical and commercial mauling of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, it seemed the studio’s iconic monsters were put back in their coffins and cages for the foreseeable future.
Wisely, though, the industry behemoth decided to go back to basics, concentrate on standalone flicks and give directors carte blanche to deliver their own take on its rogues gallery.
In the Dark Universe planning days, The Invisible Man was set to star Johnny Depp but we’re a long way from that here – and the Claude Rains-led 1933 original.
Instead, writer-director Leigh Whannell takes a more pure horror approach and frames the titular antagonist – The Haunting of Hill House’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen – as an abusive manipulator targeting his exgirlfriend, Elisabeth Moss’ Cecilia.
Whannell, who helped create the Saw and Insidious franchises, proves previous directorial effort Upgrade was no fluke by giving us another surprising, fresh trip to the cinema.
The decision to make the Invisible Man a more nasty conspirator pays off and it’s genuinely unsettling watching Cecilia put through emotional and physical hell while disbelieving friends and medical professionals dismiss her as crazy.
Moss is wonderful here as she flips between terrified and defeated and fiery and determined.
Although he’s not actually on screen very much, Jackson-Cohen is terrific too; he’s been a genre standout over the past 18 months.
Whannell expertly builds the tension to a crescendo, aided and abetted by Benjamin Wallfisch’s skin-crawling score.
By scaling back its ambition and encouraging creativity, Universal may just have resurrected its monster mash plans.