The Invisible Man is a 2020 horror film directed by Leigh Whannell starring Elizabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson Cohen. It follows a woman named Cecilia, who after leaving an abusive relationship with a genius scientist, believes her dead ex is stalking her with an invisible suit. Unlike a lot of modern horror movies, this film doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares. Instead, it builds tension through smart camera angles and lighting to make the audience think there’s an invisible man stalking them. However, the movie does have a boring protagonist, and the ending feels a little wrong.

The Invisible Man centers around Cecilia, an architect, and former girlfriend of a brilliant ocular scientist named Adrian. However, after Cecilia escapes their abusive relationship, Adrian kills himself. Cecilia then believes that he is stalking her using the experimental technology he created. Later, Adrian convinces everyone Cecilia is crazy by seemingly implicating her in various crimes. It’s then up to Cecilia to prove she’s sane and stop Adrian from hurting any more of her friends.

This movie’s main draw, for me at least, is the very interesting premise it presents. Having an invisible man stalking you is incredibly scary, and the movie does a lot with that scenario. Scenes shot on carpets or in the rain partially expose Adrian, and the idea that he’s potentially always watching is terrifying. In fact, this movie is surprisingly scary, and thankfully they don’t rely on modern fear tropes, but instead stoke horror through a buildup of tension. The Invisible Man often uses rotating hallway shots set in very dark areas to keep the audience on their toes and never let them recover. I personally really enjoyed this, as in a genre oversaturated by dumb The Conjuring clones, this movie feels very unique.

One thing that wasn’t good about this movie is the protagonist. Elizabeth Moss is fine, and is good in the role, but Cecilia as herself is very underdeveloped. The only unique thing about her is that she’s an architect. I can’t tell if she’s funny, or strict, or literally anything about her personality. Normally in horror movies, this wouldn’t be a problem. But The Invisible Man clearly wants the audience to root for Cecilia and like her as a protagonist, particularly at the end. I found it hard to do that, because there was virtually nothing done with her character. She seems to be only a plot device, with little to make the audience sympathetic towards her. This is very ironic, although this is a movie which is trying to uplift women in abusive relationships, it spends no time trying to characterize the woman it’s portraying. The other thing I found odd about this movie, and I might be alone on this one, is the ending. Spoilers, but at the end, Cecilia kills Adrian using one of his invisible suits after he manipulates everyone into thinking his brother was guilty. Cecilia’s actions come out of nowhere. It makes for a cool twist, but the audience was never shown that she was a particularly apathetic or ruthless, in fact, it was seemingly the opposite. Whenever the invisible man tried to threaten one of her friends she immediately leapt to their defense. For her to go on the offensive like that at the end, it just seems wrong and feels weird.

Regardless, I enjoyed the Invisible Man. It’s a smart and scary movie with an interesting premise and a cool villain. I’d definitely recommend this movie, and I really liked it.