Who do you become when no one can see you? Would you rob a bank, sneak into your buddy’s beach house, torment your research team, gaslight an ex-partner who thinks you’re dead? Hopefully none of the more vile options from that list, but today’s Be Reel category doesn’t take a rosy view of how already powerful men would use a new superpower, especially one that traps you alone with yourself.
We begin today’s show discussing the latest installment of this underlying thought exercise: Blumhouse’s new “The Invisible Man” and its full-on POV reversal of the classic H.G. Wells novel. The #1 movie at the domestic box office over the weekend positions the Invisible Man as the ultimate stalker, while the audience looks through the eyes of his victim, played by Elisabeth Moss.
After a spoiler-free and then spoiler-heavy (16:00) conversation about the new film, we duck back to the classic 1933 “The Invisible Man,” starring Claude Rains in the iconic bandages. We look at how the cinematic puzzle of rendering an actor invisible still carries this James Whale-directed outing today. The original Universal film focuses on disguises, costumes, and practical effects–and when it runs out of narrative steam, Rains digs deep.
READ MORE: ‘The Invisible Man’: A Well-Crafted Horror With Some Very Visible Flaws [Review]
Confusingly, “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” (1992), directed by John Carpenter, totally dismisses the idea that leading man Chevy Chase wouldn’t be rendered wholly visible in most scenes, prompting the audience to imagine him absent. The attraction of this notable flop is mostly figuring out what went wrong and whose careers got sunk in the process.
Speaking of careers sinking, in Paul Verhoeven‘s “Hollow Man” (2000), the master provocateur takes Kevin Bacon’s invisible scientist a very short distance: from power-hungry voyeur to full-on predator. That’s arguably the movie’s biggest flaw and thankfully, Leigh Whannell turns that notion on its ear in 2020 by rightfully taking the protagonist role away from the titular man.
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