Fear the Invisible Man

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 2023 thriller titled "Fear the Invisible Man" prior to sitting down to watch it. And I had no idea what I was in for here, so I have to admit that I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations. Which, in turn, meant that director Paul Dudbridge had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

However, the storyline in "Fear the Invisible Man", as written by Philip Daay, Helena Gergelova and Monika Gergelova was sort of mundane, bland and rather uneventful. And for a thriller, that doesn't exactly spell top notch entertainment. The movie was sort of lacking a drive, and it felt like director Paul Dudbridge was just filming the thing whilst still in neutral gear.

Yet, I still managed to sit through all 100 minutes that the movie ran for, though I have to say that I was not really particularly entertained by what transpired on the screen.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble, except for actor David Hayman (playing Wicksteed), and he was barely in the movie at all. The acting performances in the movie were actually fair enough, despite the fact that the actors and actresses had surprisingly little to work with in terms of script, dialogue and characters.

Visually, however, then I will say that the CGI effects in the movie were actually surprising good for a movie of this type. And while the movie didn't make a lot of use of special effects, whatever effects were there were actually helping to make the movie a bit more interesting.

"Fear the Invisible Man" is not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, as there was hardly sufficient contents to support this first viewing. Nor is it a movie that I will recommend to fans of the thriller genre.

My rating of "Fear the Invisible Man" lands on a three out of ten stars.

After the fantastic opening scene this quickly descends into total boredom. The first issue I noticed was that the dialogue quality was pretty terrible, especially for the invisible man which sounded like it was recorded in the bathroom and not at the location. The voice acting was good though. In fact overall I had no problem with the acting overall. The effects are 10% incredible, 50% adequate and 40% a bit of a mess. There are some minor plot holes and nonsensical character motivations like almost everything the detective does. The production quality is mostly very good, the locations and costumes are really excellent and the cinematography is faultless, if a little uninspired. Technically the only issue is the awful dialogue quality and some of the ADR is probably the worst I have ever heard in anything ever. The real issues that make this film so bad is that it lacks atmosphere and it's really boring. After the start nothing happens. Even the ending is a non-event. I'll end by comparing this to some other films: For similar story but with good pacing and characters watch Hollow Man (2000), for great practical effects and relatability watch The Entity (1982), for great atmosphere and mystery watch The Others (2001) and for a character driven story watch The Invisible Man (2020).

Let's start the review - some of this film is exceptional, the period feel, the locations, the cutting, the costumes, the set dressings, but the acting is awful. A shambolic borefest populated largely by rank amateur actors who should seriously look at their 'true' job prospects before inflicting themselves onscreen. The lead woman,I won't name her as she deserves no recognition whatsoever, who plays the heroine, the widow who prefers red to black in her mourning costumes, and a change of costume in every scene (costly) in this mess, if I can call her lead woman, s a shrieky voiced ham who misses every cue and acts (if you can call it that) as if no other actors are present in every scene she appears in (get back to the day job Mrs, acting ain't for you) , which indeed, is to a certain extent true, as her companion in this rubbish is invisible through most of the film. Mike Beckingham plays the invisible man invisibly, his attempts to deliver the strangulated dialogue in the scenes where he is supposed to be there, but not there (he's invisible) are mournful. A career as a road sweeper beckons. As for the actor who plays the 'colonel', Wayne Gordon, well... did anyone tell him what movie he was actually in??? His delivery is like someone trying and failing for an audition in 'Spooks' - dreadful! Hopelessly miscast and hopelessly lost in his own self esteem as an actor, (a graduate from the McDonald's school of acting - a flat white and a cheeseburger please Wayne) are the two descriptions that spring to mind. Moving on to the veteran actor David Hayman's brief appearance in this mess - why David, why? Why did you get top billing, your fee, your name, were you an 'angel' financing this farrago of a film? Do tell! Are you that desperate for work? Shame on you! Choose your parts better next time luv ok? I won't mention the rest of the cast, I hope the pay check they got for this was worth the humiliation of actually appearing in it, Nuff said. Another dud from 'director' Paul Dudbridge! Bin it, don't buy it!

Firstly, I never completely tear down small budget independent movies like this as it's hard to get movies financed, cast and made.

That being said, this Is very poor fair. Considering it is an invisible man movie it could and should have been fairly watchable at the very least. However, the plot is boring, the dialogue laughable, the acting for the most part is historically bad, the direction is talentless, the editing is practically non existent, it's like they just shot what was needed and cobbled it together with sticky tape.

There are a couple of parts that are passable. Mhairi Calvey is ok in the lead and some of the effects are ok considering the budget.

Shame Really, could have been so much better.

The movie throughout is pretty slow. But that is ok with me, I actually quite enjoyed a lot of the costumes, sets, and props around the movie. The acting for the most part was also very good. It must be difficult to act when in a empty room and talking to someone who isn't there but they pulled it off mostly. Also sometimes the voices were too low to hear over the audio, but most of the time they were alright.

I'm a very big fan of the original H. G. Wells book and I have always loved the original 1933 Invisible Man movie, and I will say after watching this, the 1933 movie is still my favorite and it's also the closest to the original source material of the book. It seems this movie tried to go with the book, but then immediately dropped it 5 minutes in. Which is okay.

I think I preferred this movie over the 2020 movie though. Overall I think a movie like this can work, and for the most part it almost does. What kills it, is that Kemp, the protagonist doesn't seem to have a reason to keep being around Griffin.

Speaking of Griffin, I do not care for the voice of him. The most important feature of the Invisible Man is the voice, Claude Rains is no longer with us, and to me he IS The Invisible Man. The voice in this movie just sounds off, and it sounds modified to be deeper than it really needs to be. Not sure if it is modified or if he just sounds like that.

Last thing is the CGI was pretty bad, I know this is a low budget film, but if you have bad CGI you should use less of it. The really noticeable parts were the 3rd time the same horse and carriage appeared, the rain, the fire, the snow/soup on The Invisible Man, and when Griffin becomes invisible/visible.

Also the ending is sequel bait...