The Invisible Man

Directed by: Leigh Whannell
Written by: Leigh Whannell
Stars: Elizabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Harriet Dyer
Plot: When Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see. (IMDB)

From Leigh Whannell, the writer behind Insidious and Saw, comes a fresh take on H.G. Wells' classic monster movie character The Invisible Man.

Elizabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale) stars as Cecilia Kass, an architect who is deeply traumatized by her brilliant but harmful and controlling optics engineer boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Cohen, The Haunting of Hill House). Kass manages to sneak away from his beach house in a very tense-filled opening sequence. But no place, no matter how far away, is safe from manipulative Adrian, and Cecilia knows that she will have to confront him again, only to find out 2 weeks later that Griffin has died in an apparent suicide. Cecilia feels free at the moment, and finds refuge in the house of a family friend (Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter (Storm Reid). However, Cecilia begins to suspect that Adrian isn't dead, as eerie instances of an unseen presence haunting and watching her every step.

With a budget of only 7 million, this was a really well-made horror film. Whannell's direction is tense, and slow-paced at some points, but leads to very effective scares. Moss gives a very good performance as Cecilia (Latin for blind), and you really feel the paranoia that she experiences throughout the movie. There's a great sequence where she's being thrown around by the invisible presence, and that scene had me on the edge of my seat. The themes in the movie, which include traumatic abuse in relationships, mixed well with the classic monster movie feel.

Again, parts of the movie are slow, so not everyone will enjoy the film. But as a fan of the director's other works, I really enjoyed this film.