The Invisible Man--My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: Cecilia thinks she has escaped her abusive boyfriend but soon finds he will use any means possible to get her back. 

An unknown enemy can be dangerous. You are attacked but you can’t do much about it. Kind of like a virus or bacteria. They will make you sick and if you could see them, you would do whatever it takes to defend yourself.

Of course, if you knew what kind of virus or bacteria it is, you could fend their attacks better.

Now imagine if you knew who your enemy was but was unable to see them. This enemy knows everything about you, and most importantly knows what you fear.

Well, that’s a great premise for a horror movie, isn’t it?

The Invisible Man captures your interest in the very first scene.

THE INVISIBLE MAN Movie Plot 

We see Cecilia, getting up slowly from her bed, careful not to wake up her boyfriend Adrian. She tiptoes around the bed to make sure he drank his water in which she had mixed Diazepam. She packs a bag with a few of her belongings. Then she heads downstairs to the basement and we see hi-tech gadgets and a locked compartment which puzzles Cecilia. But she’s in the basement to turn off the security cameras while keeping the one trained on Adrian, on.

She quickly heads back to her room, gets dressed while keeping an eye on her phone which shows Adrian still asleep.

She rushes out but a bark still her. She sees her dog Zeus looking doleful and apologizes for not taking him. She does, however, remove his tracking collar and the dog thanks her by bumping into a car which sets off the alarm.

The dog runs away to safety while Cecilia has her heart in her mouth as she jumps over the wall and runs through the woods. The dog doesn’t accompany her.

Cecilia stands in the middle of the road, waiting for her sister Emily who doesn’t show up on time.

At the last second, she does show up and Cecilia gets in the car. Her sister didn’t ask her before why she wanted her to come and be picked up. She interrogates Cecilia then why she was called and what happened even as her sister is clearly distraught and begging her to drive off.

But her sister wants answers and this gives Adrian ample time to wake up, clear off his drugged state, rush down the woods to the road and push a fist through the car window. Finally, Emily realizes she needs to drive. She doesn’t want to ask Adrian why he did that.

Two weeks later, Cecilia is gazing out the window. She’s in her sister’s ex-husband’s home. His name is James and he is also a police detective. He has a daughter Sydney who just wants to go to fashion school.

Cecilia is encouraged by James to go out and she just about manages down the drive when she senses someone behind her. It’s a jogger who hides his face with a hood to creep out women who are dealing with traumatic experiences

Cecilia rushes back to the house and James lauds her exercise, comparing it to walking on the moon.

Minutes later, Emily comes for a visit and Cecilia, wrought with concern, reprimands her for coming here when Adrian knows her. She probably thinks Emily was followed and led Adrian to James’ house.

Emily waits until Cecilia finishes to finally interrupt and inform her the Adrian is dead. A quick Google search shows that he committed suicide. Cecilia is still not convinced as she thinks Adrian was too controlling and couldn’t have just taken his life.

But Emily and James claim to know better and listen to Cecilia narrate how she was belittled by Adrian before he began to punish her for having her own thoughts.

Sometime later, Cecilia receives a letter from Adrian’s attorney who was also his brother, Tom.

At the meeting, Tom further cements the fact that Adrian is indeed dead by showing him the urn and pictures of his body. Emily reminds Tom that Cecilia isn’t required to listen to the last note left by Adrian. Tom relents and announces that Cecilia has inherited five million dollars. But...there’s a catch. Isn’t there always when a will is read out?

If Cecilia commits a crime or is found mentally unstable, she doesn’t get the five million that will be deposited in her account for the next four years.

Cecilia knows she won’t commit a crime and uses some of her money to buy James a ladder, and open Sydney’s bank account. She also promises to deposit ten thousand into her account every month so that she can go to a school of her choice.

All the while, we see long shots and since the movie is called The Invisible Man, we wonder if Cecilia is being watched. She certainly thinks so because she keeps looking over her shoulder.

The next day, she wakes up hungover from the champagne she had also bought for celebrating Adrian’s death.

She’s cooking breakfast but leaves the stove on to wake up Sydney. The eggs and bacon were almost done so she should have just switched off the stove or gone to wake up Sydney afterwards. But no, she goes to her as soon as James asks her to do so. The pan catches fire and Sydney uses a fire extinguisher in the kitchen cabinets to put it out.

Could the Invisible Man have something to do with that? Maybe. Because Cecilia did say he wanted to control what she ate and maybe Adrian didn’t want her to eat eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Soon we are shown more clues that Cecilia isn’t alone. She’s sleeping at night with Sydney when someone pulls off her blanket and we see flashes as if someone is taking pictures.

Cecilia wakes up and sees a hat and coat in the dark, just how the Invisible Man was portrayed in the books and movies from yesteryears. She doesn’t turn on the lamp but investigates further, only to find someone standing on the bedsheet she was trying to move. She screams for James but of course, no one can see anything. Sydney promptly removes her pepper spray and James scoffs. Sydney reminds him that he’s the one who brought it for her.

James consoles Cecilia by saying that she’s letting Adrian haunt her and she needs to get some sleep for tomorrow’s interview.

The next day, the interviewer is almost flirting with Cecilia and even offers her a second chance when she opens her portfolio to reveal nothing.

Cecilia goes pale and collapses. At the hospital, she sees a bandaged man, another nod to The Invisible Man portrayal on other media.

Blood tests are taken and she is told she will be informed later as to what happened to her. Cecilia is in the shower when she senses being watched. She gets a call and is told that she overdosed on Diazepam. Cecilia finds a bottle of Diazepam on her sink with bloodstains. She remembers how she had lost the bottle and that Adrian must have picked it up with his bloodied hand after he smashed her window.

She goes with James to meet with Tom and accuses him of being in cahoots with Adrian. He tells her that Adrian had always treated him shabbily too and that he was happy to find that his brother had died.

Cecilia tells him pointedly that Adrian was an expert in optics and has found a way to be invisible but no one believes her.

She goes to Emily to talk but has the door closed on her face because her sister informs her of the hurtful email she received. Cecilia promises her that she didn’t send any email but Emily doesn’t care. She knows email accounts cannot be hacked and that Cecilia always wanted to write to her that she wished she was dead.

Cecilia goes back to James’ house and lies on the ground. Sydney consoles her by offering her cake and throwing out James. Cecilia is excited by the word cake and gets up and wipes her tears. The Invisible Man horrified to discover that Cecilia was going to eat another food item that he didn’t approve of, whacks Sydney for her suggestion.

Sydney doesn’t care that Cecilia is sitting at a distance. She accuses her and screams for James who, rather than throwing Cecilia out of the house, goes out himself. Before that, he tells her to go to Emily’s house.

Cecilia knows Emily won’t let her in so she stays In James house and decides to scatter all his coffee on the floor so that if the Invisible Man comes, she can see his footprints. He doesn’t come because he probably already saw Cecilia doing all that and was standing away from her the whole time.

Cecilia realizes that flaw in the plan that she can’t see him but he can. She decides to call him and hears his phone in the attic. She climbs up the ladder and goes into the attic to find Adrian’s phone and pictures of herself sleeping. A message pops up: Surprise.

Cecilia doesn’t get what the surprise is but senses a presence. She goes to the opening and pours down paint. A figure is revealed on the ladder. Cecilia freaks out but climbs down to follow the paint drops. It ends in the kitchen and she sees that someone has washed in it.

Cecilia has had enough and runs out. She calls for a cab who takes her to Adrian’s house.

Inside, she goes directly to the basement, opens it with a code that was a date of when she and Adrian met. She presses a couple of buttons and a suit is revealed that is made up of hundreds of tiny cameras.

She takes it and hides it in Adrian’s closet. But someone is already there and she just about manages to run away.

She calls up Emily and asks her to meet at their favourite restaurant.

Once there, Emily makes snarky remarks to the waiter and orders free water. Just as Cecilia is about to tell Emily of what she found, her sister’s eyes widen. She’s seeing a floating knife but before she can react, her throat is slit. Cecilia has her mouth open and her palm open to receive the knife.

The other customers scream and the police are called. Cecilia is dragged to her cell and restrained as she screams she didn’t do it. She keeps her eyes on the doorway, certain that Adrian is there, mocking her.

Just before she loses consciousness she hears, "Surprise".

Apparently, the surprise was framing Cecilia for murder.

Later she meets with James and his partner who keep telling her she’s crazy. Cecilia maintains that Adrian is alive but James sends his partner away and tells her again she needs to check on her sanity.

Afterwards, Tom comes to meet her and explains that according to the will, the trust is no longer available to her and Sydney will not be getting any more money deposited in her account.

Cecilia calls him a jellyfish because he’s mean and manipulative just like Adrian but without a spine. Tom smirks and then tells her that he too has learned that she is pregnant and needs to go back to Adrian. Only then he can make it all go away.

Cecilia responds by stealing Tom’s pen and he tells her he’s giving her three days to think about the proposition.

THE INVISIBLE MAN Ending Explained with spoilers! 

At night, Cecilia uses the pen to jab it on her wrist and tells Adrian that she’s going to kill herself. Adrian intervenes and in the ensuing struggle Cecilia uses Tom’s extremely strong pen to stab the Invisible Man several times. This causes a glitch that makes the Invisible Man partly visible.

Cecilia runs out and is halted by the officers that the Invisible Man incapacitates. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t leave any witnesses or what he does could be considered a dumb move to prove Cecilia was right. There also is the matter of cameras...

Cecilia makes her way out and in the rain, the Invisible Man accosts her and tells her he will go after who he loves considering he can’t hurt her because she’s pregnant.

Cecilia has been going on about loving Sydney since the beginning so she knows the Invisible Man has heard that too. She takes a car and drives to James’ house. She calls James as well and he arrives just in time to see Sydney being attacked by an invisible assailant. Her pepper spray only disoriented the Invisible Man for a few seconds.

James is powerless against the assailant and is beaten up badly. Cecilia arrives without anyone hearing her and is armed with a fire extinguisher. The Invisible Man is shot several times and Cecilia unmasks him to reveal Tom.

Sometime later, James informs Cecilia that Tom is dead and that Adrian was kept tied up in the basement. She doesn’t believe the story but James tells her it is better than the blame falling on her.

Cecilia meets with Adrian after a few days at his house. He appears nervous and has laid out a buffet for her. Cecilia chooses steak but doesn’t eat it and instead asks Adrian to admit he was behind the whole thing. He doesn’t admit to anything but weeps and confesses that he knows he treated her shabbily and wants her to give him a second chance.

For the sake of the baby, Cecilia appeals to tell her the truth and we see James in his van listening in to the conversation.

Cecilia excuses herself and goes to clean herself. We see someone invisible slice open Adrian’s neck.

A few minutes later, Cecilia emerges and screams. She calls the police and tells them she thinks her boyfriend committed suicide. As Adrian bleeds away she tells him: Surprise.

Outside, James tells her he knows what she’s done after she takes the Invisible suit with her in an unzipped bag. Somehow Cecilia knows that James will have to side with her as he doesn’t have concrete proof of her crime anyways as the cameras at Adrian’s house will show nothing.

She walks away scot-free.

The movie was certainly watchable and had some interesting moments.

There is however a question of whether or not Tom was involved. Did he help his brother or did he actually kidnap Adrian, finds out he left money to Cecilia and concocted a plan. He wanted to prove Cecilia was crazy and did, in fact, kill Emily and frame her for the murder. Once she was charged she could no longer access the funds and perhaps all of it would go to Tom. This would explain why he doesn’t contest the will in the first half.

Or maybe he was played as well. Adrian was known to his brother and Cecilia as controlling. He convinced his brother to wear the suit and harass Cecilia only to use him as a scapegoat. Adrian must have told Tom to go hurt Sydney, expecting that James might intervene and kill him. They were entering a cop’s house after all.

Just how many Invisible suits were there? One that Cecilia has hidden, one that Tom was wearing. Did Adrian have one as well that glitches and he had to repair it? Or was the suit ruined after Cecilia stabs him in her cell? That’s when Adrian probably came up with a plan to pretend he was taken hostage by his brother and then frame him for everything.

This is definitely a movie worth a second watch just so we can find out if what we were shown did exactly happen.

I mean, we do hear Adrian’s voice say Surprise, right?

Scare scale: 4/5