Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
After experimenting on himself and becoming invisible, scientist Jack Griffin, now aggressive due to the drug's effects, seeks a way to reverse the experiment at any cost.
James Whale's The Invisible Man is a landmark of early horror-sci-fi, distinguished above all by Claude Rains's astonishing vocal performance — a tour de force given he spends nearly the entire film unseen. The special effects work for invisibility was genuinely revolutionary for 1933 and remains impressive; the cinematography by Arthur Edeson is inventive in staging the impossible. The film's darkly comic, Grand Guignol tone is distinctly Whale's own, setting it apart from Universal's other monster pictures. The plot, while faithful to Wells, is fairly thin — it's more a showcase for set pieces and menace than a carefully constructed narrative. The ending, while poetically just, arrives abruptly and feels somewhat perfunctory, undercutting the film's otherwise bravura momentum.