Film Review - The Invisible Man (15)

He's sitting in that chair.

H. G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man told of Griffin, a genius in the scientific field of optics, who is driven to violence having achieved invisibility - irreversibly so. In 2020 writer/director Leigh Wannell has reworked the premise, forging it into a horror-thriller to satisfyingly suspenseful effect. The best scary films - I've said it before - tend to be those about something beyond their obvious hook. Wannell's film puts a diabolical spin on Wells' idea, one that gives the story a spiky modern resonance and a reason to exist all its own. If you didn't see the need for this new version, look again. Look hard.

The Griffin in question this time around is Adrian - a brilliant optical physicist like his 1897 literary counterpart, but equally an abusive and coercive partner to Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss). When she finally breaks free of his control, the worst of her suffering seems behind her, dramatic developments appearing to confirm that Adrian won't ever be a part of her life again. But then a string of unnerving events suggest the incredible - that her ex is stalking her invisibly, in a terrifying literal sense. As her closest friends and family dismiss her fears as PTSD-induced paranoia (you can't not see their point), the unseen threat intensifies. And as her world threatens to crash all over again, fragile Cecilia struggles in her attempts to retaliate or even to prove she's not losing her mind.

If as originally intended The Invisible Man had been part of Universal Studios' 'Monster Universe', this would have been a very different film. The shrewdness of this version is to take the fantastical premise and ground it in reality, forging a notably modern story about coercive control. Who better to terrorise an emotionally damaged ex than someone she can't even see? And isn't it the MO of that type of abuser - to make his victim appear like she's the crazy one? However outlandish the basic concept of invisibility, the story's psychology convinces completely, so that it's easy to buy into the reality of Cecilia's plight.

This is a high-tension experience throughout. Years of working in the Saw and Insidious franchises have honed Wannell's skills as a director of suspense. A taut opening sequence establishes the stakes, making it clear how terrifying a proposition Adrian is even when clearly three-dimensional. Every trick is utilised here (the occasional well-placed jump-scare included) to ensure you're rattled like Cecilia from the very start. Then a more creepily subtle approach takes over along with the invisibility shenanigans. Little can be more unsettling than a camera lingering significantly on empty space, cluing you in on the threat neither you nor the protagonist can see. There's an accompanying chill in the colour palette too as events turn sinister, draining all the protective warmth from the home Cecilia finds with her friend James and his daughter Sydney (Aldis Hodge and Storm Reid). And that's just the first act. Any time our heroine threatens to outwit her nemesis from them on, this screenplay has a wicked way - accompanied by Benjamin Wallfisch's jagged score - of upping the threat level.

At the centre of all this is Moss, who's been becoming steadily more visible since Mad Men by way of The Handmaid's Tale. Her portrayal of Cecelia is the stuff of awards (if those doing the awarding could get over their genre movie snobbery). Jumpy from sustained trauma at the start, she spirals through degrees of fear and derangement, before evolving by necessity into something gratifyingly different. It's a performance marked by authenticity - the kind where cathartic releases of emotion happen before your eyes with no camera breaks to aid them. Take into account that she's often acting with an antagonist who isn't visibly there and you grasp how impressive this all is. There's commendable support - Hodge's sympathetic but skeptical friend and Michael Dorman's spineless brother-of-Adrian both stick in the memory - but it's Moss's show first and last and she rises heroically to the unseeable challenge.

If I've made the movie sound sombre and over-serious, let me just clarify that this is primarily an escalating thrill-ride - one that cranks its way to vertigo-inducing heights of tension before plunging into third-act mayhem. Yes it carries genuine thematic weight, but those themes are all delivered through sustained anxiety and heart-racing excitement. Even the invisibility shtick - practical effects favoured over CGI - are convincing enough to keep you fully invested. What might have been dismissed as a run-of-the mill genre flick is anything but. Whatever you're expecting to view, there's much more to this Invisible Man than initially meets the eye.

Gut Reaction: Had me socially distancing myself from my seat at one point and in an advanced state of unease for the rest. The ending is a satisfying belter though.

Memorable Moment: You'll know it when you don't see it.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Never before has an invisibility film invoked such a sense of 'is he there or not???' A terrific horror-splashed thriller and a pre-quarantine reminder of why I like the group movie experience so much. 

Film Review - Happy Death Day 2 U (15)

It's Monday the 18th... again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

2017's Happy Death Day was a winner - namely of the Filmic Forays Low-Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I Expected (quite the honour, let me tell you). Expecting the kind of C-grade teen horror movie you laugh at, I was delighted instead to find myself laughing with that strangely sweet-natured horror-comedy. A Groundhog Day/Mean Girls/Scream triple-fusion, it took sorority piece-of-work Tree Gelbman, put her through a nasty-stabby time-loop wringer and turned her into a proactive heroine for whom the audience was rooting all the way. Of course such enthusiasm meant I approached Happy Death Day 2 U as a wary fan - nervous of what a sequel might do to the first film's crowd-pleasing legacy...

Aaaaaand relax. It's good. Not without its flaws, but - definitely good. 

It's also a huge surprise in its own right, in that it take the genre conventions established in the first film and smashes a whole new genre into them with the force of a particle accelerator. Within the first ten minutes most of what you might have been expecting is blown to smithereens, before being reassembled into something that is definitely familiar, but - different. Okay I'm tiptoeing around plot points here, as HDD2U is best experienced by fans with its WTF-factor intact. What I can say is this... Tree is happy with new boyfriend Carter, the time-loop is broken and her life is back on track. But the cause of said time-loop, which has an unexpected connection to Carter's oafish roommate Ryan, is still in play and soon she finds herself trapped back in Monday 18th - the same as before, only not. The stakes this time around are very different.

There's a degree of sadness (expressed by Tree herself in the movie) that whatever mystical explanation audiences had for the heroine's Groundhog experience has been totally undermined by the sequel's radical twist. In addition the new plot elements require some wild leaps in logic that we're left to bridge for ourselves, as the story is far too busy moving forward to sort them out for us. However the new tack does usher in a multiverse of possibilities that serve to keep the central premise fresh. There's a ticking clock aspect, a clutch of new/developed/altered characters and a heartbreaking central dilemma for the Deathday Girl.

Speaking of Jessica Rothe, she is - once again - the chief reason for this film's success. In the first she made a sarcastic 'beatch' likeable and that character's repeated slaughter palatable through bolshy energy and a nice line in gallows humour. Now she reenters the loop as a raging blonde torrent - fierce and hilarious, attacking the material with the panache of a star rather than a standard B-movie scream-queen. Despite an enjoyable group dynamic this is her show and she excels - both in the helter-skelter craziness of the plot and in the genuinely affecting character moments. Seriously, give the girl more work. She's good! 

The unleashing of this comedic whirlwind is indicative of the film's intentions as a whole. While some horror elements remain - a bit of stalk-and-slash down campus/hospital corridors - this is much more a comedy, a character drama and a romance, plus that other thing I've not explicitly stated. It succeeds totally at the first three and has a good stab at the third, the musical score and an early film reference cheekily underscoring the daring new direction. Do all the elements hold together? Just, and only if you fill in various plot-blanks and tie up on or two plot threads yourself. However the whole enterprise is so good-natured and gleefully played that you'll likely be happy to do that. And there may very well be a HDD3 - so that Tree Gelbman and friends can all die another day.

Gut Reaction: Some fairly major head-spinning at the genre-hop and a bit of grasping for sense. But mostly laughter and delight at seeing Tree in action again.

Memorable Moment: Montage of the macabre.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. If you can get your head around the new concept and roll with the madness, you'll find this a worthily fun follow-up. What's Happy Death Day for, if not to screw with your expectations?

Filmic Frighteners - Sinister (15)

You can never explain something like this. And if you were able to, the odds are you wouldn't much care for the answer.

The Gist: Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a struggling true-crime writer, who moves himself and his family into a house where a horrific quadruple-murder took place. (Of course he omits to tell them the grim truth about their new dwelling.) In the attic he discovers a super 8 home-movie collection detailing similar crimes to the one he's researching for his new book. As he becomes obsessed by his investigation into the recordings, he wrestles with a terrifying suspicion - that the source of the killings may be more sinister (and less human) than anything he had previously imagined.

The Juice:Made back in 2012, Sinister is a nasty variant on the haunted house tale, with the found footage in the attic providing the worst of the nasty. The opening shot is truly unsettling, and it's not the only moment of genuine horror. Ethan Hawke brings weight to the central role in a performance that digs deep into fear and obsession; the fact that we stick with his steadily more harrowed viewpoint bodes nothing good. There's well-played drama between him and his long-suffering wife (Juliet Rylance), while interactions with an eager police deputy (James Ransone) supply a welcome element of humanity and understated humour. Director Scott Derrickson gradually mimics the style of the super 8 footage in the rest of the movie, as though Ellison's world is being infected by what he uncovered on film. 

The Judgement: 7/10. Sinister is at its most effective in the character-driven scenes and when Ethan Hawke is absorbing all the ghastly celluloid imagery in a darkened attic. The creeping-around-the-house-at-3am stuff, when the supernatural aspects become more explicit, didn't work quite so well - at least for me. But the performances carry it, along with some macabre ideas nicely executed on screen. And as a story it proves to have the courage of its mean-spirited convictions.

Personal Fear Factor: The paranormal aspect was ultimately too daft to trouble me much, but the found footage scenes chilled, one of them delivering a real moment of shock. And the ending... okay, I'll give them the ending. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.