The Invisible Man (1933)
Directed by James Whale
I recently got a poster of the top 100 horror movies, that you scratch off all the movies you’ve seen. I’ve seen a vast majority of these movies but The Invisible Man is one of these that I haven’t, so I found it on Prime.
The Invisible Man is about a scientist that finds a way to become invisible but can’t undo it, and he goes insane and starts killing people. Nowadays, it isn’t anything original but in 1933 this must have blown people away. The effects on the invisible man are really impressive. He’s typically wrapped in bandages, but when he removes them, thats when we see that he’s invisible and it is handled quite well, especially for the time.
The acting is really solid. Claude Rains plays the Invisible Man, and his voice is incredible. You almost have to have an actor with an awesome voice, since he’s invisible most of the movie. Which is probably why Vincent Price plays the Invisible Man in the sequels, another actor with a distinctive voice. Rains is rather menacing in this movie, first he’s kind of standoffish and wants to be left alone. Then he turns completely evil and starts causing chaos every where he goes.
In tyipcal Universal Monsters fashion this movie is barely over an hour long, so you don’t have to dedicate too much time to it. Which is great for me because my time for watching movies has greatly decreased even from last year so these old 30s horror films are easy to digest. The annoying cackling bitch from a handful of other Universal horror movies is in this and shit, she’s still annoying!
If you haven’t seen this classic, then by all means check it out. The latest remake is pretty stellar too. So I was able to scratch this off my poster and enjoyed myself in the mean time. I give this a B.
