The Invisible Man: The Prize & Man in Power

Hammer Films actually took the trouble of clearing the rights to a number of classic Universal monsters, but the one they never got around to adapting was the Invisible Man. The 1958 Invisible Man TV series is sort of the closest thing to a Hammer Invisible Man, even though it isn’t gothic, or even horror. Instead, it placed an invisible scientist (the good guy for a change) in a Cold War espionage context, but it regularly co-starred familiar Hammer players, like Michael Ripper and Thorley Walters. Even the voice of the Invisible Man, Tim Turner, had a Hammer connection as the future narrator of The Mummy’s Shroud. The half-hour format was way too short for the genre, but it is still fun to watch an Invisible Man battle Communists, especially villainous Anton Diffring and Andre Morell in two of the better episodes (which release in yet another DVD-set this Tuesday).

“The Prize” (S2 E4, directed by Quentin Lawrence and written by Ian Stuart Black) was freshly ripped from the headlines, taking transparent inspiration from the Nobel Prize that was awarded to Boris Pasternak, before the Soviets browbeat him into declining it, just less than a year before the episode originally aired. In this case, it is dissident author Tania Roskov (played by Swedish thesp Mai Zetterling) who intended to accept a Nobel-like prize in Europe, but was intercepted by the sadistic secret police officer Gunzi at the border.

You know who else is picking up an award for science at the Nobel-like gala? That’s right, invisible Dr. Peter Brady. Sure, he is still working on reversing the invisibility process, but he achieved something pretty amazing. Distressed by Roskov’s plight, Brady decides to sneak into the unnamed but presumably Baltic nation to rescue her.

Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man

This invisible man is serious about invisibility, so he doesn’t mess around with hats, goggles, and bandages. That is rather unfortunate for the woman he stalks so stealthily. Fans will miss the iconic imagery of the 1930s Universal monster franchise, but they should still appreciate the tension of Blumhouse’s modernized take on The Invisible Man, directed by Leigh Whannel, which opens tomorrow nationwide.

After careful planning, Cecilia Kass finally manages to escape from her cruel and controlling lover, the fabulously wealthy Adrian Griffin. He made his fortune through his breakthroughs in optics, so you know what that means. Shortly thereafter, Griffin suspiciously commits suicide. At least it is suspicious to Kass and us. Sure enough, an invisible entity is soon tormenting her. He is especially vicious, devising ways to isolate Kass from her support system, including her platonic cop friend James Lanier and his daughter Sydney, with whom she has been crashing.

Forget all the hype about Invisible Man being a #metoo movie. That’s just lazy marketing hype. Yes, Kass definitely must overcome Griffin’s abusive and manipulative behavior, but this is really an old fashioned “woman in jeopardy” thriller (this a term we really use in publishing), raised to the power of one hundred. Despite the affection we all have for the disembodied raincoat gags of the 1933 films, the invisibility special effects this time around are quite impressive—and Griffin’s attacks are notably violent. Indeed, Whannel and the tech team fully live up to the frightening implications of an invisible monster.

Whannel’s nearly-in-name-only adaptation of Wells’ Invisible Man also shifts the focus from the unseen mad man, to his victim (or would be victim), Kass. Fortunately, Elisabeth Moss is up to the challenge of carrying the picture and playing complicated attack scenes by herself. Moss is terrific portraying her fear, alienation, vulnerability, and resiliency, which is a lot of emotional terrain to cover. Even though it comes in a pure genre film, this might be Moss’s best performance to date.