Horror movie masters invisible elements
By: Meghan Hudson, Arts & Life
This past Friday night, me and some of the girls decided to take a well-needed semester break and have a relaxing girl’s night out. What happens when you decide to go to On the Border for dinner and drinks? That’s right, the impulsive decision to see “The Invisible Man” on its opening night, Feb. 28.
“The Invisible Man” is a horror movie directed by Leigh Whannell, who is most famous for writing the “Saw” films, the “Insidious” films, and many other well-known horror blockbusters. The story itself is based on a novel by H.G. Wells of the same name, with the screenwriter unsurprisingly being Whannell himself.
The main character of this film, Cecelia Kass (Elizabeth Moss), decides to leave an abusive relationship with her tech-genius-millionaire boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). He consequently commits suicide, leaving his fortune behind for Cecelia.
However, amidst her struggles to bounce back from the relationship, Cecelia becomes convinced that Adrian is not dead, but that he is invisible, and an odd series of events proceed to ensue.
The very first thing that I noticed when the movie began, right from the opening title, was the intensity of the sound. Will Files, the re-recording mixer and the supervising sound editor, utilized Dolby Atmos technology to create the illusion of sound being thrown around the room. While this element truly sucked me into the film and left me on edge, what really left me feeling uneasy was their use of sound behind the audience’s head.
This was a recurring technique that you could not get used to as the movie went on. The sound was by far one of the most defining elements of the film and held a stark contrast to the quiet voices and movements and the characters.
The second thing I noticed, was the incredible acting done by “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” icon in Moss. Her believability in this role carried the weight of the entire movie on her back.
Moss executed every single moment in the entire movie perfectly, and there were moments that left me saying out loud, “damn,” solely due to her skill as an actress. If you’ve seen the film, you know exactly what moment I’m talking about.
The dialogue amongst characters was often a little soft. This left me feeling a little detached in the beginning of the movie, but also feeling like I needed to listen closely to what Cecelia was saying.
Making Cecelia soft spoken however, turned out to be an extremely strategic decision on behalf of Whannell, as the amount of moments I had at the end of the movie relating to the things that were said in the beginning, was insane. And no, you don’t need to pay super close attention to understand.
My point is that the way the movie invests you into these characters and what they say, makes your mind blow that much more at the end.
Speaking of the ending, which I’m not going to go into detail about, it really caught my neck. Just when you think you can predict it, everything changes. Simply put, I think the ending was genius.
Furthermore, this being a horror movie that leaned on many jump scares, a big worry for me would normally be that the film leans too heavily on those momentary scares, and in turn, lacks a plot. This was not the case with this film, as the storyline was extremely well thought out had me leaving the theatre feeling very satisfied.
All in all, I would go see this movie again, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good movie to watch.
5/5.
