The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man has never really achieved the popularity that his fellow Universal ‘monsters’ have enjoyed – Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man – but Picturehouse’s inclusion of the film in their Halloween season is a welcome reminder of its spectacle and ingenuity.

Based more or less faithfully on H. G. Wells’s novel of 1897, The Invisible Man is the story of a chemist who – yes – invents a serum made from the drug monocane that when taken turns the patient invisible. The side effect, however, is madness. Griffin arrives on the winds of a snowstorm at an inn, bandaged and bespectacled, demanding dinner and a private room. The landlady walks in on him as he’s eating and sees the top half of his head floating above his neckline. Panic ensues downstairs and we find that Griffin is, in typical mad scientist fashion, trying to take over the world using his invisibility. 

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film are the special effects, incredible for the 1930s, because for the most part actor Claude Rains only appears as a disembodied voice. Either his mummified in bandages, hat and sunglasses, or he is partly clothed - and so we see a cigarette being smoked in the space above a chair, a pair of trousers running by themselves, and the indents of footprints in the snow. These pre-CGI effects, produced by wires and black velvet suits, are what make the film so enjoyable.