The Invisible Man (1933)
HORROR-THON 2022 • HOUSE PARTY
8/10
DIRECTOR: James Whale
STARRING: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan
RELEASED: 1933
RUNTIME: 1 hour, 11 minutes
WATCH ON: Peacock, Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home
SCARE LEVEL: Low
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Wild
A stranger checks into a village inn in a snowstorm. His whole head is wrapped in bandages, and he wears dark goggles, gloves, and a long coat. He wants to be left alone, but that is never going to happen.
The stranger is Dr. Jack Griffin, a scientist who has found a way to make himself invisible. He doesn’t know how to reverse it. Worse, the drug he used is slowly making him insane.
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He holes up in a small English village trying to find a cure. The innkeepers get nosy, and that’s the end of that.
He unwraps the bandages in front of everyone, and there is nothing underneath. From there, Griffin goes from cranky to completely unhinged. He plays pranks, he robs people, and then decided to rule the world through terror. The police and his old colleagues try to stop him, which is not easy when you can’t see him.
MY HUMBLE OPINION
This is a classic, and I’d only seen it in pieces until now. Watching it from start to finish, I was surprised how funny it is - whether it was meant to be or not. The village scenes are almost slapstick, and the innkeeper’s wife screams more than anyone else in this year’s Horror-Thon lineup.
The special effects are wild for 1933. The bandages unwrapped to reveal nothing. An empty shirt dancing down a country lane. You know how they did it, mostly, and it still works. I laughed out loud at a few of them in the best way.
Claude Rains spends most of the movie with his face covered, so he does almost all of it with his voice. It’s arrogant, theatrical, and a little giddy.
Also, it’s nearly impossible to stop singing “Claude Rains is the Invisible Man” from Science Fiction Double Feature.
FUN FACT FOR YOUR NEXT DINNER PARTY
To achieve the effect that Claude Rains was invisible when his bandages were removed, Rains was dressed completely in black velvet and filmed in front of a black velvet background.