Der Unsichtbare

Im Kino nach dreieinhalb Monaten (!), als ich von Zuhause weg im Fernsehen eher alte Quarantäne-Filme zweiter Klasse gesehen habe, und gleich so ein Knaller! Ein sehr würdiges Aufholen des Reste vom Anfang des Jahres, als ich von Ritchies The Gentlemen begeistert war. Whannells Der Unsichtbare baut auf Prinzipien eines Geisterhorrorfilms, dann wird aus ihm ein raffiniertes paranoides Katz-und-Maus-Spiel. Der Höhepunkt ist ein Mörder-Thriller mit einer perfekten visuellen Gestaltung der Actionmomente, bei dem man das Atmen vergisst. Jede von den drei Lagen des Films bestätigt, dass Whannell die Genre-Regeln kennt und beim Drehbuch sowie der Regie innovativ arbeitet. Das ist keine Arbeit vom gewöhnlichen Handwerker. Dieser Film enthält eine bravourös aufgebaute Spannung, die nur mit der Unkenntnis der Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauer und einer intensiven düsteren Musik erzeugt wird, eine schockierende, atemberaubende Wende (!), ein kreatives und intelligentes Spielen mit Genre-Klischees, eine durchdachte Ausstattung und eine delikate Kamera-Akrobatik. Das alles bekommt man in einer mutigen Länge, damit man alles nach Herzenslust genießen kann. (08.06.2020)

The first half was on track for a five-star review. Whannell fires off one idea after another; the last time I enjoyed contemporary horror with a similarly fresh and innovative take was Wan’s first instalment of the Conjuring franchise. Wan and Whannell have quite a few things in common – both are undoubtedly clever creators who made do with modest means in their early days, relying on talent and inventiveness without any big budget to speak of. The excellent Upgrade simply wasn’t a lucky accident. It is clear to me now – and I would in fact bet my Blu-ray collection on it – that one big studio or another will make a move also on Whannell, who may look forward to a promising directing career (Scott Derrickson, another great talent, came from similar beginnings). Sadly, the second half of The Invisible Man somewhat turns into a B-movie spectacle, and I didn’t have as much fun. But the slightly cynical ending with a nice zinger was pleasant enough. Unlike Elizabeth Moss. She has no charisma, lacks feminine fragility…and what’s worse, she can’t act :o). (22.03.2020)

This post-MeToo reinterpretation of H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man transforms the subtext of numerous slasher films and paranoid thrillers (toxic masculinity is evil) into the main theme and, unlike the original story, factors in primarily the viewpoint of the victim rather than that of the attacker. The screenplay was written by a man (director Leigh Whannell), though on the basis of consultation with specialists and victims of stalkers and emotional manipulators. In order to take the feminine perspective into consideration as sensitively as possible, Elisabeth Moss was invited to refine the script. The most terrifying part of the film is its first half, which gives us a hint of the hell experienced by the partner of a person with personality disorder even after the (seeming) end of the relationship and patiently reveals the aggressor’s methods. From the ways that Cecilia’s ex-partner psychologically torments her, destroys her career prospects and isolates her from her family and friends in order to intensify her helplessness, the film is chilling in that it shows how easily such methods can be applied in a world where invisibility has yet to be invented. (Due to his ability to assign blame to the victim, the perpetrator of this form of violence often seems to be absent and invisible, someone who does not actually exist). Compared to other, similar films that keep us in a state of uncertainty until the end as to whether the main character is in fact losing touch with reality (in other words, we have the same doubt that a manipulator tries to induce in the victim through gaslighting), here we know from the beginning that Cecilia is in the right and her cognitive abilities are unimpaired, which together with Moss’s performance and the boldly subjective narration strengthens our affinity for her and the frustration arising from the fact that no one believes her, while someone else takes control of her life step by step with a chillingly premeditated plan. Though the second half of the film is closer in nature to a standard splatter film and the psychological persuasiveness more conspicuously gives way to genre conventions, it is still first and foremost about what the protagonist experiences. Thanks to the viewer’s interest in the main character, the film’s climax works superbly. It is satisfying to see who takes the lead in it and how, as well as in how simply and effectively it is directed (which is true of the whole film; instead of visual effects and scares, extremely inventive use is made of the most basic stylistic elements employed by horror filmmakers: silence and empty spaces, slow panoramic shots, well-timed point-of-view shots). It is a horror film that, in revealing some of the sources of today’s social anxieties, is equally as important as Get Out was a few years ago (as we live in a society that is more trusting of those who are good at pretending than it is of the victims of such pretending). 80% (06.03.2020)

Leigh Whannell confirms in The Invisible Man that he is a director to be reckoned with as someone who knows the horror genre. But he's still a little short of the best. His new film should have been some twenty minutes shorter, but otherwise it's a not very original but excellently made thriller. Whannell spices up the tension, helped not a little by the excellent Elisabeth Moss, and in the more action-driven scenes he confirms the qualities already hinted at in Upgrade. He also plays fair with the viewer from the start and lays all his cards on the table surprisingly early, but that doesn't stop the rather uncomfortable atmosphere from working. Personally, The Invisible Man sat better with me in the moments where it took itself 100% seriously, because its reliance on atmosphere and a more mature approach to the material really makes it work in a way that most contemporary horror films dream of. But while the whole B-movie feel is perhaps a little too rushed and it reeks a bit of trying to spice things up at all costs, overall this is well above average stuff that shows horror fans that there are still talented directors out there who can tell even a hackneyed story in a way that doesn't bore you for two hours. Although, unfortunately, it probably won't be enough for a new genre classic. (01.03.2020)

The talented Leigh Whannell delivers the first solid horror film of the year. I liked Upgrade a tad more, but he has done a decent job with Invisible Man, it's already clear that the film will join the ranks of successful remakes. Elisabeth Moss gives a strong female performance (she is one of the least likable actresses and even if she is not the best looking, she at least makes up for it with a solid performance). I'm not familiar with the original, so I went in more or less blind, and the story is interesting and engaging enough. The film's strongest points are definitely the music, which completes the perfect, almost intense atmosphere, there’s plenty of suspense and unexpected twists. The downside for me was the slower pace in the first half, and I was also hoping for Whanell to dabble in violence, which he surprisingly avoids completely, and for that a point down. Satisfied, but I was expecting something more intense. 8/10. (01.03.2020)

Die hervorragende paranoide Regie und Kamera von Der Unsichtbare machen mit den Zuschauer*innen das, was z. B. auch Spielbergs Film Der weiße Hai. Die beunruhigenden statischen Aufnahmen suggerieren dem Publikum einfach ein, dass dort jemand steht, den man nicht sieht. Oder da? Oder da? Es wurde wirklich ausgezeichnet gemacht und zusammen mit der absolut glaubwürdigen Leistung von Elisabeth Moss ist es der Haupttrumpf von diesem Film. Dieser Horrorfilm ist zwar unauffällig, aber umso eindrucksvoller und überraschender. Er widmet sich nicht nur dem Spuken, sondern auch dem ernsten Thema von häuslicher Gewalt und Einschränkung. Wenn der Film ein bisschen kürzer wäre und wenn z. B. der ganze Teil auf dem Dachboden verschwinden würde, hätte ich absolut keine Einwände. (05.03.2020)

The much poked-at feminist subtext is effective, of course, but I enjoyed more the smartly transtextual format that hides the invisible male threat. Another great thing is the notional absence of a prologue and the immediate connection to the perspective of a troubled woman who desperately wants to get free from the shackles of her husband – I think the opening sequence is the best part of the whole film. The enemy is profiled gradually, mainly through the dialogues of other characters, the presentation of his lavish mansion and the maturely articulated MeToo campaign, while we are forced to keep our fingers crossed for the heroine from the get go; and in the second half Whannel can stop generating tension mainly through individual scenes (with more references to well-known horror movies than it may appear at first glance and with the lack of a visible enemy) and move on to motifs of surprise and to pique the curiosity through the story as a whole (how did he set it all up and get others to believe Cecilia?). Thanks to the transtextual genre distinctiveness, the film is much more sophisticated than just “abused woman escaping her rich husband” and lets the viewer pose interpretive challenges, but, on the other hand, most questions are answered too soon, or can be easily figured out, and the ending is like mandatory satisfaction rather than a bold resolution to the various genre and motivational concepts. But I have to admit that everything holds very well together and, with the exception of a couple of scenes with questionable effect after a second viewing, this is a superbly directed intersection between classic horror from Universal and a modern genre play with the viewer, the kind of which we don’t see very often. The scene with the paint in the attic and its climax in particular scared me almost as much as the sequence in the ventilation duct of the first Alien. 80% (14.03.2020)

Der Unsichtbare fesselt die Aufmerksamkeit des Zuschauers dank der großartigen Atmosphäre, die sich aufbaut, und natürlich dank Elisabeth Moss' eindrucksvoller Darstellung der Cecilia. Im Gegensatz zu den meisten Horrorfilmen (oder Thrillern) basiert der Film nicht auf der Angst vor dem, was wir sehen,, sondern vor dem, was wir nicht sehen - um es etwas banal auszudrücken -, was den Filmemachern auf eine sehr kunstvolle Weise gelungen ist. Gemeinsam mit dem Protagonisten schauen wir in leere Türen oder Gänge und warten darauf, wer oder was dort auftaucht. Elisabeth Moss war dank ihres unverwechselbaren Aussehens die perfekte Wahl für die Rolle einer Frau, die plötzlich nicht mehr weiß, was um sie herum vorgeht, und nicht weiß, ob sie langsam den Verstand verliert. Gegen Ende hatte ich das Gefühl, dass die Handlung etwas an Fahrt verliert, aber insgesamt war ich mit der Auflösung mehr als zufrieden. Nicht zuletzt muss ich die überwältigende und fesselnde Musik loben, die die dichte Atmosphäre des Films perfekt ergänzt hat. (05.03.2020)

I’m struggling a bit with a certain formal sterility, but I guess that kind of goes with the territory of hi-tech thrillers, and more than once I was snapped out of it by the fact that Elisabeth Moss often looks like Jeffrey Tambor wearing a wig. Still, I'm giving it full marks because I haven't seen such perfect drama in a genre film in a long time, allowing the film to graduate from intimate drama/horror to near-sci-fi actioner (a one-shot in which an invisible man beats up about ten people FTW) without retreating from the overarching theme of the seemingly irrational trauma of a victim of psychological abuse. Nor should Whannell's individual visual ideas be overlooked, such as the shot during the opening titles of a wave crashing from the ocean's perspective just before the waves break on the rocks. Or those sadistic camera glances into the void, depicting the protagonist's sense of the antagonist's omnipresence. It's really very clever. As an added bonus, I'd like to announce that I really wish more of the lead heroine roles were cast with these atypical, interesting, and adult types of actresses like Moss. Her character development works here in large part because she can believably play all the different roles she has here, and when she flips into the role of the hunter, that’s a satisfaction I sorely crave. Let the kids who bounce to movies from PornHub maybe shit themselves. (04.06.2020)

I really don't know who came up with the rule - whenever Elisabeth Moss appears in a movie or series, her character has to be referred to as beautiful at least once. I can have a good laugh about it and life goes on, but then I'm confronted with the close-ups of her face, and I can already count on waking up from sleep screaming, drenched in cold sweat. These shots are also the only explanation why horror is listed as one of the genres. The film itself wasn't exactly amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. If I had been able to root for the protagonist, I might have even enjoyed it more. (18.08.2020)

The co-production The Invisible Man shows that Leigh Whannell has not exhausted his ideas yet and that he definitely still has more to give. I think it does not matter at all if he shoots alone because he is a very capable man in that respect. The movie The Invisible Man may be long, although it does not matter as it manages to keep you engaged for the two hours of its running time. (09.04.2020)

I feel like good horror movies are scarce these days, so I don't watch them very often. However, I was tempted by The Invisible Man not only by the name of the director, but also by the actress in the title role. It is not a classic of the genre, and I would classify it as a psychological thriller with horror elements. The first half of the film is really worth it. The carefully constructed atmosphere keeps the viewer in suspense, and when the increasingly intense dark music is added to the mix, it's simply perfect. The story itself is most frightening in its imaginings of what could happen if a tyrant with whom you want nothing more to do could make himself invisible with the help of modern technology. But when the film moves into the second half and the ideas start to materialize, it all goes a bit wrong. However, the bar is still set high enough within the genre to avoid any significant devaluation of the experience. I would also like to pay tribute to the great Elisabeth Moss, who did a great job portraying Cecilia. The transformation from a psychologically depressed woman, with signs of madness in her furious facial expression, into a lady who takes her destiny into her own hands, had a powerful effect on me. (75%) (19.07.2020)