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7.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 7.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Invisible Man remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like old-school monster movies that aren't afraid to be a bit nasty, yeah, definitely. This isn't a slow-burn snooze fest. It moves fast, it’s funny, and Claude Rains is basically doing a masterclass in voice acting before that was even a thing. If you need hyper-realistic CGI or don't have the patience for 1930s pacing, skip it. You’ll probably hate the way the dialogue feels like a stage play at times.
There’s something weirdly honest about the way this movie handles insanity. Most films today make the villain seem like a mastermind. Here, he just sounds like a guy who’s had a really bad day and decided to take it out on the entire village. It’s petty. I love that.
The scene where he’s wandering around the snow with his bandages off, leaving footprints that just stop? That still looks cooler than half the stuff I see on Netflix. It’s simple, but it works because you’re looking at it and thinking, how did they even do that without a computer?
Una O'Connor is in this, by the way. She spends half the movie screaming at the top of her lungs, and honestly, she steals every single frame. She’s like a frantic, terrified bird. It’s hilarious.
There's a moment toward the end—I won't spoil it—where the movie just gets really dark, really fast. It’s a sharp pivot. One second you're laughing at a guy in pajamas running around, and the next, it’s actually kind of sad. It’s an uneven movie, sure. It doesn't always know if it wants to be a comedy or a thriller, but that’s fine. It feels like a human made it, not a corporation. 🧪
It definitely has more character than a lot of the stuff I've been watching lately. You can tell they were just figuring out the rules as they went along. No heavy-handed metaphors here. Just a man, a suit, and a lot of broken glass.
