HallowScream - The Invisible Man (2020)

     Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, October has begun, and that mean's it's time for my annual Halloween review series: HallowScream. Throughout the month, I'll be looking at different horror films and films with ties to Halloween. So, for the first review of HallowScream, let's take a look at a newer horror film with the recent remake of The Invisible Man. A modern re-imagining of H.G. Wells classic story, this movie is the latest attempt by Universal Pictures to release modern re-imaginings of their classic monster movies. In 2014, Universal released Dracula Untold, a Marvel comics-style re-imagining of Count Dracula starring Luke Evans as Dracula, and in 2017, we got The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, a film that attempted to kickstart a shared cinematic universe called the "Dark Universe." Both movies failed spectacularly, which led Universal to focus more on individual films rather than a shared universe. And that leads us to today's review of The Invisible Man.

    The movie focuses on Cecilia Kass, played by Elizabeth Moss, who is in an unhealthy and abusive relationship with wealthy optics engineer and businessman Adrian Griffin, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen. One night, Cecilia drugs Adrian with diazepam and escapes, with help from her sister Emily, played by Harriet Dyer. Cecilia stays with a friend from her childhood in San Francisco Police detective James Lanier, played by Aldis Hodge, along with his daughter Sydney, played by Storm Reid. Two weeks pass after Cecilia's escape, and Adrian has apparently killed himself by hanging, and has left Cecilia $5 million in his will. Adrian's lawyer brother Tom, played by Michael Dorman, handles all of the arrangements. Cecilia feels like their is another presence in the room, as a whole series of unexplained events begin to happen around her, but James reassures her that nothing is wrong, and she's only traumatized. During a job interview, she learns that her portfolio is empty and she passes out, and when she wakes up, the doctors tell her of the large quantities of diazepam in her system, and she later finds the bottle she used to drug Adrian, but dropped in the escape. This leads her to believe that Adrian faked his death, and using his optics knowledge became invisible. And is Cecilia right? Does her invisible stalker really exist? You'll just have to check the movie out for yourself.

    While I ended up missing out on this movie in theaters when it was released back in February of this year, I did pick it up on Blu-ray, and I found it to be an excellent modernization of H.G. Wells classic tale of mad science. The idea of a skintight suit that is optics based is really intriguing. Elizabeth Moss really stands out in this movie as Cecilia, playing up the trauma of being followed by an invisible stalker very well. By using the setting and pacing to his advantage, director Leigh Whannell, who co-created the Saw franchise, makes this movie extremely scary. By far, The Invisible Man is the scariest movie of 2020, and gets a rating of 5/5. Now, Universal is working on a sequel, with Leigh Whannell returning to direct, as well as a spin-off titled The Invisible Woman, which is set to be directed by Elizabeth Banks. So, keep an eye out, as Universal isn't done with their classic monsters just yet, as Leigh Whannell is also working on a reboot of The Wolf Man starring Ryan Gosling, which sounds like it could be fun. This is Chuck signing off, Stay tuned, because HallowScream is just getting started.

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