The Invisible Man is both Dated and Timeless
The Invisible Man is a a delight for the fan of classic horror movies, or for the student who wants to study the nature of man when corrupted by power.
Written by BHM Contributor Dr. Chills
February 25, 2009
Release: 1933
Directed by: James Whale
Written by: H.G. Wells (Novel) and R.C. Sherriff (Screenplay)
Starring:
Claude Rains as the Invisible Man
Gloria Stuart as Flora Cranley
William Harrigan as Dr. Arthur Kemp
Henry Travers as Dr. Cranley
You may ask yourself just what is so scary about a film from 1933 where an invisible guy wraps himself in toilet paper and runs around reeking havoc. I’ll tell you what… That invisible guy running around in toilet paper was once a very rational man, a human being, but due to the ingestion of a chemical invisibility formula, becomes transformed into a certifiable homicidal maniac. That’s what’s so scary.
Despite the black and white character of the film, and the odd and rudimentary special effects, The Invisible Man truly put a bit of a scare into
me. There’s something creepy about a scientist gone mad, particularly one who was probably a megalomaniac even before he ingested the invisibility formula. Couple a scientist who knows he’s on the verge of the greatest scientific breakthrough in human history with the fact that he accidentally turns himself invisible and can’t figure out how to turn himself back and add the fact that the invisibility formula is slowly rotting his brain and turning it into mush. That is a recipe for disaster.
When this man finds himself in the bind of being invisible, he decides to hunker down in a hotel room in a local tavern and tinker with his chemicals with the hopes that he will stumble upon the antidote for
invisibility. Well his odd appearance makes it difficult for him to just blend in with the crowd and his slowly melting brain doesn’t help either. He quickly rouses the suspicious and angst of the barkeep as well as his wench-like wife. The barkeep’s wife asks that her husband evict the strange man who has rented the room and all hell breaks loose. The invisible man unveils himself, sort of. When he unveils, there is actually nothing to see. So the invisible man unveils himself and proceeds to scare the living daylights out of everyone in the bar.
The brief bit of sympathy that the viewer might have had for the forlorn scientist is quickly replaced by disgust as
the scientist, once sad a frightened by his invisibility status, now begin to revel in the power that invisibility can bring. He begins to take sick pleasure in knocking people’s hats off their heads, throwing things down, stealing things and generally being a nuisance to those in the sighted world. If he remained a nuisance, a viewer might be able to salvage a bit of sympathy for the man, but he continues down the path of insanity and begins to kill. He kills both those he has grudges against and some just for fun.
There appears to be no way of stopping this now-crazy man, but all at once he is subdued while answering one of nature’s great calls. The need to sleep.
The invisible man is a timeless film that will be a delight for the fan of classic horror movies, or for the student who wants to study the nature of a man who is corrupted by power. Questions or comments about The Invisible Man? Discuss it on The Ossuary Forums!
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