PROVOKR PICK: THE INVISIBLE MAN
The Haunting of Elisabeth Moss
In The Invisible Man, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) escapes from her abusive and controlling boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) in the dead of night. Unable to cope with being left by the woman he torments and to taunt her, Adrian commits suicide. Or does he? He leaves Cecilia a large inheritance divided into five monthly installments. However, there is a catch. Cecilia must continue to prove her sanity to receive the payments. Soon, strange events start happening and Cecilia believes Adrian, a brilliant scientist, never really died. Instead, she thinks he found a way to become invisible to punish her for leaving him. Her sanity stumbles and she must prove her harasser is not a figment of her imagination.
This new movie from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures is an adaptation of the famous H.G. Wells novel of the same name. The book follows Griffin, a “chaotic evil” and scientific genius who figures out how to become invisible. Once unseen, he goes on a destructive rampage. This movie takes the general concept of an amoral but brilliant man who discovers a way to make his body unseeable, but it won’t follow him down a random path of violence. At least, from the trailer, it seems he is invisible and not a figment of Cecilia’s imagination.
The Invisible Man takes an old story and turns it into a modern-day horror tale about the scars of an abusive relationship. Even when Cecilia seemingly escapes his grasp, he is still there, haunting her. By using the tropes of genre horror, this movie paints a picture of actual demons. Hopefully, Cecilia succeeds in breaking free of her emotional captor for good.
See The Invisible Man in theaters February 28, 2020.
