At its worst, Universal Pictures' "Dark Universe" seemed like a cynical way to try and reverse-engineer a franchise. At its best, it could have been an opportunity to reimagine iconic monsters in interesting and frightening new ways. While Blumhouse's upcoming The Invisible Man reboot isn't a "Dark Universe" film, it's perfect bellwether of what could have been.
The new take on the old boogeyman is a tale about believing victims of domestic abuse, couched in the story of a man who can hide what he's doing by literally being invisible. Elizabeth Moss stars as the widow of a controlling and seemingly violent man (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who killed himself after she left him. He leaves Moss's character $5 million, provided she can prove that she's mentally competent. As you can probably guess from the name of the movie, her late husband isn't actually dead. And he uses his newfound powers of invisibility to torment Moss and make her seem unstable to everyone around her.
Director Leigh Wannel said he wanted to veer away from the comical floating trenchcoat of previous outings.
“I wanted to kind of get away from that and make something that was really modern, really grounded, or as grounded as you can be when you’re dealing with a film called The Invisible Man," he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "Just something that was really tense and scary in a way The Invisible Man hasn’t been before.”
The new film is being produced by the aforementioned horror powerhouse Blumhouse, and is set to hit theaters on February 28. Take a look at the trailer up top.
