The idiom of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly terrifying one. By virtue of his unassuming appearance, the predator becomes non-threatening. He can hide in plain sight and hunt with all the privilege of inconspicuousness. If looks could kill. The only thing worse than a predator in sheep’s skin is one with no skin at all. Those who lurk not in the shadows, but in the light of the lord. Luring the unsuspecting into their hidden traps. Predators do live among us but thankfully they are visible. With visibility comes consequence, accountability. The hunters have to at least make an effort to conceal their predatory behavior. We can, at the very least, see their fangs. And we can fight back.

Writer-director Leigh Whannell’s modernization of The Invisible Man bears little narrative resemblance to the iconic 1933 film of the same name (a masterful template for science fiction horror movies going forward and one of my personal favorites of the classic Universal Monster movies) nor H.G. Wells’ 19th-century novel and yet thematically there is commonality in no short supply. Wells’ tale spoke to madness, power and perseverance (“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today”) and Whannell reworks this triangle to topical results.

The film opens with Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) escaping the grasp of her abusive husband Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), flipping the script on his long-standing psychological warfare and controlling domination by drugging him in his sleep and making off with just an overnight bag. When the abandoned Adrian apparently commits suicide, Cecilia suspects it’s all just a con for her ex to worm his way back into her life. Things go bump in the night. To those on the outside, Cecilia’s insistence that her “dead” husband is messing with her reveals signs of impending insanity. A woman’s intuition may be a powerful thing but it’s nothing if everyone sees you as slipping into the grasp of madness.

While the invisible man (the character) is all about it, The Invisible Man (the movie) smartly does not play games. Cecilia is presented as a cunning and intelligent protagonist, one who suspects immediately Adrian’s shenanigans and the script from Whannell wastes little time beating around the bush, even if her figuring out Adrian’s gambit only makes her sanity look all the more wavering. We’re spared the long back and forth game of Cecilia trying to figure things out and The Invisible Man makes good on actually getting to the stuff we want to see without a thick layer of set-up fluff. And while the promotional material leans on tired cliches like chicken-scratch on a fogged-up mirror, Whannell makes a concerted effort to dodge lazy horror movie mainstays of this variety and instead offers up one creative and giddy set-piece in a hospital that’ll remind viewers of the staging brilliance of Upgrade.

Outside of one elaborately-staged set-piece, Whannell’s camerawork is rarely flashy, relying frequently on negative space to build tension. His camera pulls out to frame Cecilia and blank space. Space we draw the invisible man in. I found myself, like Cecilia, scanning the emptiness for signs of life. In these moments, The Invisible Man could tip towards jump scares but shows more restraint than that. While the subject material is quite terrifying, the film itself finds comfort in eschewing traditional scares. Instead, it sits deeper, burrows further, and taps into the frightening reality of the low-broiling torture that is domestic abuse. By framing The Invisible Man as a deliberate character study and examination of abuse, one which bears more similarities to a psychological thriller than an outright leap-from-your-seat horror show, Whannell also gets to unleash the full brunt of Elisabeth Moss.

Leave it to Moss to be able to act against literal nothingness. Half the battle of a good performance is balancing what you give and what you receive and Moss bounces off empty space better than most performers can another high-caliber actor. She’s frankly terrific here. Joined by a strong ensemble that includes Aldis Hodge, Harriet Dyer, and Storm Reid, The Invisible Man boasts well-constructed characters and a magical dog named Zeus who is definitely more than meets the eye. I’ll leave it to a smarter writer to explain exactly what the significance of the guardian dog Zeus is meant to represent but there’s no question that this is but a mere pet. Bits like this give you a little more in sink your teeth into and give The Invisible Man a lot of rewatch appeal.

One of the great unspoken ironies of The Invisible Man is that by finally abandoning the quest for a Dark Universe franchise (with fumbled and failed twice with Dracula Untold and then The Mummy), Universal has stumbled into something that’s quite franchisable. By the end of the film, I want to see more of this character. Of this world. Not because there’s already a release date for the next installment but rather because Whannell took the time to tell one good story without the need to smush in page breaks for a larger universe. This ought to be a lesson for everyone in Hollywood right now, in bold visible letters.

Taking Wells mantra to “adapt or perish”, The Invisible Man couldn’t be more timely, coming right on the heels of production magnate Harvey Weinstein’s legal conviction of sexual assault. In many ways, Whannell’s adaptation is a direct response to the #MeToo movement, and painstakingly explores the concept of gaslighting and the invisibility of victimhood. Weinstein’s conviction was a major step forward in believing women without the need for hard physical evidence. Of taking claims of abuse seriously. It set a legal precedent that recognized the quiet torment of psychological manipulation. Weinstein is the flesh and blood example of Faustian hubris, the mad scientist suffering a God Complex, finally taken down by those he victimized. Unfortunately for Cecilia, no one believes her. But she’s not quick to become a victim. In order not to perish, she adapts.

CONCLUSION: Elisabeth Moss is fantastic leading Leigh Whannell’s intelligent and captivating reimagining of ‘The Invisible Man’, a thought-provoking horror-thriller that focuses on the realities of emotional violence and abuse, particularly when it is painstakingly obscured.