Anna Daniels
Sometimes movies that release in February and without big-budget marketing can end up becoming surprise hits. This is what happened to The Invisible Man, a new take on the famous H.G. Wells story and 1933 Universal horror movie classic.
It had everything going against it, including the worst possible release window and having a 1930s-era movie everyone would have never thought could be improved upon. Add in Elisabeth Moss, though, and audiences likely perked up.
Moss has been exemplary in everything she’s been in, and she was likely the immediate attraction. No wonder critics are praising her alone since the tale has been reversed to tell it from her character’s perspective. It also fits in with the type of roles she’s been doing lately, as in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Elisabeth Moss helps tell the story from an abused woman’s perspective
There was real brilliance going on when those at Blumhouse planned out this Invisible Man remake. Rather than tell it from the man’s perspective again, why not flip it to the man’s abused girlfriend, Cecilia, and show her trying to escape the clutches of Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen)?
In this telling, Adrian is a gaslighting psychopath who comes back to terrorize Cecilia when he turns invisible.
Having Cecilia trying to stay safe from Adrian and convincing others he’s really invisible opened a lot of doors to a deep psychological study.
Fortunately, Moss does roles like this with aplomb. She’s also more used to doing them in the indie arena, making a mainstream movie like this for her very unusual. There should be some serious consideration for her to do more films like this based on all the glowing reviews.
Yes, it’s really an Oscar-worthy performance, even if it’ll likely be (criminally) forgotten about when the nominations come out early next year. This isn’t to say maybe Moss won’t become a regular in other planned Blumhouse horror reimaginings.
Horror with a social message is becoming the norm
One can argue Blumhouse is more or less going in the same path Jordan Peele has gone with his horror offerings. He’s really the first to flip horror movies into becoming deeper dives into social issues. Of course, in his takes, it’s about race.
Now Blumhouse can expand on this and perhaps go into other social issues not explored completely in any prior film. Not that domestic abuse hasn’t been looked at in-depth before.
Only a few reviewers thought The Invisible Man felt derivative to what’s already been done on the big screen about abuse in the past. Not surprisingly, most of those reviews came from males, even if every critic was unanimous in praising Moss. There’s all reason to say she’s what made this movie, something director Leigh Whannell likely took to heart.
Will Moss now show up in other Blumhouse/Whannell horror movies? Who else could she play with new twists?
Other horror stories from the woman’s perspective
Thanks to Blumhouse Productions signing a 10-year deal with Universal Pictures seven years ago, there’s still time to recreate some other old Universal horror pieces. With the success of The Invisible Man, the deal will undoubtedly be extended.
They’ve already remade some horror classics recently, not including distributing some of the most successful low-budget horror movies of the last decade. Revisiting more Universal horror movies of old would be well worth doing. Doing such a thing, however, might take some time since they have a lot on their slate already.
Imagining Moss in remakes of Dracula or even The Bride of Frankenstein would give opportunities to tell those from the woman’s POV. Moss could also delve even deeper into the darkness of the psyche as she seems to do in every project she takes on.
Maybe a little bit of dark comedy would also be apropos, something only touched on by Moss in her still harrowing portrait of June Osborne in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Written by: Cheat
