Review: New take on 'Invisible Man' is a scary, tense thriller with a message for the current moment

An enduring science-fiction classic gets repurposed brilliantly in “The Invisible Man,” an effectively chilling horror movie with a timely theme.

The classic version, first written by H.G. Wells more than a century ago, follows an inventor who develops a way to become invisible — but then goes mad because of it. In this new version, director and screenwriter Leigh Whannell transfers the apparent madness part to another character: Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss), the psychologically abused wife of Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a scientist whose specialty is optics.

The movie begins with Cecilia carrying out a plot to escape from Adrian’s high-security house overlooking the Pacific. She drugs Adrian, then slips away to a road where her sister, Alice (Harriet Dyer), picks her up — but not without Adrian nearly catching her.

Cut ahead two weeks, and Cecelia is still a paranoid wreck, afraid to step on the porch of the house where she’s staying — where her cop friend James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter, Sydney (Storm Reid), live. Then Harriet returns with the news that Adrian apparently committed suicide. The news is confirmed by Adrian’s brother, and his lawyer, Tom (Michael Dorman), who tells Cecelia she’s inherited a $5 million trust fund from Adrian.

Cecelia, though, still isn’t convinced Adrian is dead — and a series of incidents, small at first but growing in severity, lead her to believe that Adrian is alive, and has mastered a way to make himself invisible. Of course, everyone around her starts to believe she’s gone crazy. Thus does Wells’ classic tale transform into a gripping story that illustrates the importance of believing women.

(Anyone accusing the movie of being “woke” to score brownie points should remember that horror has tackled big issues for decades: The pitfalls of scientific arrogance in “Frankenstein,” nuclear destruction in “Godzilla,” racism in “Get Out,” and so on.)

Whannell has launched two horror franchises, writing the screenplays for “Saw” (2004) and “Insidious” (2011), and making his directing debut on “Insidious: Chapter 3” (2015). He may have a third on his hands here, a better handling of Universal’s famous monsters than the bloated “Dark Universe” series the studio planned, but pulled the plug on after the Tom Cruise vehicle “The Mummy.”

Here, Whannell starts with the nail-biter of an opening of Cecelia’s escape, then performs a slow burn as incidents start happening to Cecelia — and she must fight to keep her sanity when everyone else is doubting it. Sometimes the effects are small and subtle, but they build to some striking set pieces. (Once again, the trailer gives away more than it should.)

None of Whannell’s clever moves would hold together, though, without Moss at the center. It becomes almost repetitive to talk about how good an actor Moss is — examples like “Mad Men” and “Her Smell” are everywhere — but it’s undeniable. Moss finds in Cecelia both a vulnerable victim and a fed-up fighter who can outfight and outthink her unseen tormentor, and her performance turns “The Invisible Man” into something deeper than a standard horror movie.

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‘The Invisible Man’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, February 28, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some strong blood violence, and language. Running time: 124 minutes.