THE INVISIBLE MAN
You Ain’t Seen Griffin Yet
RELEASED 29 June (Download 19 June) 2020 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/ download Director Leigh Whannell Cast Elisabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid
You’ve only got to look at other revivals of figures used in classic Universal horrors – from Van Helsing and The Wolf Man to Dracula Untold and The Mummy
– to measure the success of Leigh Whannell’s take on HG Wells’s creation. Topical and technically proficient, it’s visibly superior.
The high concept has a brilliant simplicity. Optics company millionaire Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, his bright green bodystocking digitally erased) is an abusive partner who fakes his death in order to stalk the woman who escaped him.
As you scour ominous shots of empty hallways for any sign of visible breath, it’s horribly tense. Elisabeth Moss gives a simply phenomenal peformance as Cee, acing all the same shades of helplessness, terror and resolute self-assertion she brought to Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale.
A final-act twist is a little indigestible. And a few details niggle: how did Griffin fake his death? Does his invisibility suit give the wearer super-strength? Exactly how and why did he devise it? Still, after Upgrade this is the Saw writer’s second consecutive cracker.
Extras This is as an extended edition, with a few minutes of additions bumping the certificate up to an 18. Whannell provides commentary. He’s also the focus of “A Director’s Journey”, an 11-minute piece which documents shooting on day one, day 40, and six days in-between. There’s some neat footage here, particularly of a kitchen fight shot using a motion-control camera, with the actors following a robotic count. Nine deleted scenes (14 minutes) provide unnecessary set-up and additional character moments. Three talking heads featurettes (12 minutes) supply all the usual “character journey” guff.
HG Wells was inspired by “The Perils Of Invisibility”, a piece of comic verse by WS Gilbert first published in 1870.