So I’m flying back home and, having seen Till Death (you can read my review of it here) on my way to my destination, I’m looking through what I’ve downloaded and decide to watch the 2020 Leigh Whannell written/directed film The Invisible Man on the way back. I enjoyed Mr. Whannell’s 2018 film Upgrade quite a bit and wanted to check out The Invisible Man for a while now and decided it was time.

What I didn’t realize is that Till Death and The Invisible Man are, thematically anyway, films that can be described as “the husband from hell and the harried wife who has to somehow survive them.“

Here’s the movie’s trailer and, like Till Death, it gives a taste of what you’re in for without giving away everything:

In The Invisible Man, we start off introduced to Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss, quite good). She in bed next to her husband Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, also quite good) but, we find, is in the process of escaping his high tech -and clearly very expensive- home.

She’s terrified of Adrian and the audience soon finds out why: In the process of escape, Adrian reveals himself to be prone to violence (I won’t get much more SPOILERY than this) and, even when she’s finally freed of him, Cecilia fears he will find her and enact his vengence on her.

I’m loathe to give too much more away. Going by the trailer, I will say this much: Adrian appears to have committed suicide and then things get stranger as Cecilia fears her ex has somehow figured out a way to make himself invisible and is now after her… and her friends.

As I said above, both Till Death and The Invisible Man are films that focus on a violent, devious, and dangerous husband who wants to “get” his wife and I was genuinely struck by how both films follow through on this premise quite well.

The Invisible Man, after a somewhat slow burn introduction (the only very big negative I would give to the film… maybe I’m getting impatient in my advanced years), takes off in delirious and interesting directions. Like Till Death, the film does feature several surprises and also some necessary suspension of disbelief (I’ll give one here as I did with Till Death: Didn’t Cecilia wonder why the dog was healthy when she saw him the second time?!).

Still the suspense is quite good and the story is meaty and treats the audience with respect without dipping into silliness.

If I have any real big negative, its only the fact that I somehow stumbled onto seeing these two films and wound up comparing them to each other because their initital premises are so very similar.

The Invisible Man is clearly the more fantastic of the two films and was also the one that featured a larger budget but Till Death gets points for knowing what it’s going for and getting there quick.

Still, you can’t miss with either film.

That is, if you want to see husbands from hell going after their wives… who turn out to be far more resourseful than the asshole husband thought they were!

Recommended.