Critic Reviews

Moss continues to deliver what we crave from woman characters: the kind of messy yet sturdy intricacy many of today’s thinly conceived you-go-girl female superheroes continue to lack.

There’s no extraneous storytelling here, no scene that feels unnecessary, no scary moment that plays like it’s pandering. This is the expertly told, horrifying story of an abusive relationship filtered through the lens of a classic horror movie monster.

It’s elegant and diabolically poised, a familiar story expertly retooled for an era of tech-bro sociopathy and #MeToo outrage, but also graced with an insistently human pulse. Studio brand extensions rarely feel this intimate, this personally unnerving.

The horror of The Invisible Man comes from the knowledge that not only would Griffin’s schemes work should such a technology exist, but also from knowing that they already do.

Elisabeth Moss delivers the best performance of her film career, carrying the story every step of the way.

Moss shifts into another gear for the truly disturbing finale, when those eyes flicker with thoughts of revenge and events unfold in a way that remind us that Whannell’s big break was as the screenwriter of Saw. The Invisible Man ends on a nasty note, but then again the 1933 film was nasty too. Given the omnipotent power of invisibility, humans apparently do their worst.

Moss gives yet another fearless performance – hers is a raw, exposed, physical, and ultimately fierce role, and it’s often stunning to watch the manic energy in her eyes as she attacks a scene.

Moss also strengthens the notion that this is a monster movie unusually interested in looking past the toxic-male machinations of its famous character and toward the lasting horrors left in his wake. In other words, the stuff that previous movies, and real life, have sometimes tried to turn invisible.

While not particularly subtle or probing, The Invisible Man manages to do what many of our greatest horror movies have done before it: address a real-life, everyday nightmare in a heightened, bracing, and even cathartic way.

The Invisible Man is full of tension and surprise, a brooding midnight movie traumatizer packed with the constant threat of unhinged energy that roars with a crowd.