This week Abby and Alan discuss the history of The Invisible Man. Starting with the book by H.G. Wells and ending with the 2020 remake of the film. Plus every film, comic book and TV series in between.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Send your stories and submissions to thelunaticsproject.com.
This week Abby and Alan discuss the history of The Invisible Man. Starting with the book by H.G. Wells and ending with the 2020 remake of the film. Plus every film, comic book and TV series in between.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Send your stories and submissions to thelunaticsproject.com.
Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics radio hour podcast, where we explore the history behind your favorite horror films and hauntings. I'm Abby Brenker. I'm here with Alan Kudan. Hello. And today we are talking about the history behind the invisible man films. So wait, we're just doing the, the films, not like, well, I guess I just answered my own question cuz there's no like myth mythological, invisible, man. I mean, I'm sure there are, but not like he's no Dracula, you know. Exactly. I think it's not exactly the same of some of our other universal monster episodes because you know, there is certainly <laugh> invisible entities in mythology that we will touch on, but I it's very hard for me to say that that inspired HG LS to write the invisible man. I think that's more a symptom of like a So we will talk about some invisible entities from folklore just to kind of round out the history, but it's not gonna be kind of the same as like the Dracula episode or the Wolf man episode. Because to your point, it's a lot less inspired by folklore. Are we gonna talk about ghosts? No. Cause you know, that's like an invisible that's true thing. Yeah. I was actually thinking about that. Watching all these movies, it's like, he's like a less scary ghost. Well, I don't know. I, I, I I've given this a lot of thought. Okay. About invisible man versus ghosts. Okay. And so like at first is like, he's less scary because he's there, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> you can hit him with a baseball bat, right? Can't he's got clothes on you can't hit ghosts with a baseball bat. I mean you can, but it won't won't do anything. Sure. Cause intangibility, you know? Right. But like ghosts can usually like, fuck you up still. Sometimes I don't know, ghost don't really have a set set like list of rules, but invisible men do. They're just invisible <laugh> but he's there. But I, but simultaneously. He also hasn't died, which I think is a big distinction. What do you mean? Like in these films, the invisible creatures are not dead. They're just invisible. Yeah. That that's literally the only thing he is going for 'em. Ghosts are not humans. They were. Humans are humans, right? They're humans phase humans V two, you know. On the flip side, you know, ghosts, aren't always malicious where the invisible men in films we saw are always malicious and they're usually crazy and psychotic that the invisibility just drives the mad. Well, yeah. I was. Gonna. Say that's the theme and they're also naked. They're like naked men in your home. Like that's weird. And. Women, there's some invisible women thrown in there today. That's true. That's a, that's a great point. Yes. Yes. Before we get into today's topic too much deeper, shall we pause for some announcements? Are you gonna tell everyone about the $5,000 sweepstakes? No, but similar you're on the right. Track. Okay. We don't have a $5,000 sweepstakes just to be very clear yet.<laugh> hopefully someday, but we are doing a contest of sorts. Yeah. Yes. This is something new for us. Let me give you guys the background. The background is this, this project, as most of you probably know, started as a short film project before we had the podcast, before we had the magazines and all the other elements, we, it was a project where we created short horror films and that was the whole thing for many years. And with the pandemic, the other parts of the project really started to grow and it wasn't safe to make short films and be in confined spaces with other people. So that was on pause. But now things are starting to feel a little bit safer. We kind of have a better understanding of wearing masks and in all the safety tools that we have to make sure we have a safe environment. So we've jumped back into the filmmaking side of this project and we released our first film post COVID. Again, we're not post COVID, but our first film, since our film hiatus, which is called the witching hour, which you can watch on YouTube and we just had so much fun and we're so fulfilled making it, it turned out really well. We think, and we have some other projects in the works, but we just really wanted to like double down and kind of find our roots again this summer, especially as it brings us a lot of joy to make the, to make the short. Films. And now is the perfect time of year, cuz it's beautiful filming weather. And we have that energy from the sun. We have the energy. Yes. We're solar powered. Yes. We have just enough time now to crank a few more movies out. Mm-hmm <affirmative> for our grand Halloween reveal. That's right. For many years for this project, we would do a film screening in October of all of the films that we had made that year. And that's how we kicked it off. I would say in 2017, I think was the first year. So we really wanna do it again. We haven't been able to obviously do it during the pandemic, but we have to kind of get busy and make a few films throughout this summer and fall in order to, to get ready for that. Which we are very capable of doing. Oh yeah. In, yeah, the year right before the pandemic, we were cranking out. I think we did like one movie a month. It was nuts. We did I think like yeah. 10 or 13 films that year. It's crazy. Yeah. But it was what a, what a good time. So let's do that again. Uh, however, you are so busy with the millions of things that you do me. Yes. Uh, I believe it is time to start crowdsourcing film ideas. So we had this idea to kind of get the podcast side involved in the film side and really bridge the gap and build, you know, more of a Lunix community. We hope, but we we're opening calls as of today. As of this episode, submissions are open for our new contest where you can submit a log line. We don't want a full script, but a log line, your idea for a horror. Short can for those who are not well versed in the industry, such as myself, what is a log line? A log line is like a one sentence summary of what you would pitch the film as if you were in the elevator with, you know, John Carpenter. For instance, if I, if you were riding with Mr. Carpenter, you could say, Mr. Carpenter, let me pitch you on my idea. It's about this boy who is trapped in a house and then his arms fall off. You could, you could do that. An example for the godfather, the aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clan death and empire to his reluctant son. Or like woman gets attacked by fish monster. Then they fall in love. There you go. That's a, that's a. That's what we're looking for. Yeah. One ed submissions. You can email these to the Lunix project, gmail.com or there's a place on our website, Lunix And if you're interested to kind of see some examples of what we've done, you can head over to our YouTube channel, the Lunix project on YouTube and check out our short film section. I don't know when this, uh, these submissions will be due, but we'll let you know when we're no longer taking new submissions. How. About that tomorrow?<Laugh> but yeah. Send us in your, your ideas, your log lines only if you're willing for us to actually make them. And uh, we'll let you know which ones we pick. Yeah. Don't submit if you don't want us to have it. Yes. That by submitting, you are agreeing to the rules of the contest that we will take your idea potentially and make it it's. It's a fun thing. Like, you know, I personally, I have all these ideas for movies and I never actually like take the time to write out a full script mm-hmm <affirmative> so I people where it's like, Hey, here's a crazy idea. Write it. And then they write it, you know? Uh, and it's just fun seeing, you know, that's how you get, you know, your, your fingers into, like, you can say you wrote a movie. For sure. And we'll give you a credit, you know, for sure. You'll yeah. You'll get executive producing credit.<Laugh> based on the logline pie. That's right. Based on a true submission.<Laugh> okay. So we'll remind you about that, but please send us in. Those were we were, we kind of wish we had like a 48 hour film, you know, like film contests were, were just really antsy to, to get jumping into some creative energy. And we like this. We like the restrictions. Yes. Uh, and that's one of the reasons why working off someone else's prompt is often such a beautiful creative venture. Absolutely. Yeah. Otherwise all we do is make things about fish monsters.<Laugh> yes. That's all we do. Typecast ourselves. Okay. So shall we get into invisible man sources back to the reason why we're all here today? Right. So we have of course IMDB, Wikipedia. We have the films, which there are many more than I expected. And then we have two articles, a screen rant article by Sarah Baya, Millner, how invisible man did amazing effects decades before CGI. And we have a BBC article by Laura STEs, the elusive hidden people of Iceland, spoiler alert. The elusive people of Iceland. Hidden people. The elusive hidden people. Of Iceland. A okay. Cliff hanger. Yeah. What, what that, one of these doesn't sound like the others. Shall I explain? Would you like to explain? Yes. Okay. So like we said, right, there's not kind of one to one folklore with invisible man. Like there is with vampires or werewolves, but we did wanna touch on some of the rumors or mythologies where we could find mention of invisible entities just to kind of give a holistic history of invisible people. Cool. And we have found some legends that date back to ancient times. Hmm. So an example of an invisible entity is the cool do folk or hidden people from Iceland, spoiler alert with the article. They are elves that can turn themselves visible and invisible at will. Typical. They're local to the Icelandic. And Farise people quoting from a BBC article quote, according to a 2007 study by the university of Iceland, an estimated 62% of the nation believe that the existence of elves is more than a fairytale end. Quote. What percentage. 62? That's. A large number of the populace mm-hmm.<Affirmative> yep. I went to Iceland, I don't know, year, five years ago, six years ago now. And I knew that that people there actually believed in and I'm not judging it. I think it's amazing. I wish I lived there and believed in elves too, but that they believed in like fairies and elves and noms and like these, this folklore and it's just such makes it such a magical place. Are most of these entities benevolent or like, is it just like Japanese household spirits or are there like malicious forces that they also believe in. Hey, there Savannah Gibo here. If you've ever dreamed of writing a bestselling novel, I'd love to invite you to check out the fiction. Writing made easy podcast. We talk about all things writing, editing, and publishing fiction so that you can get started and not feel so confused or alone questions. Like where do I start? How do I create compelling characters that readers will love? How do I build a believable world for my story? How do I find an agent? And more, I break the writing, editing and publishing process down into simple, actionable, and step by step strategies that you can implement right away, whether you're a brand new writer or a more seasoned author looking to improve your craft. This podcast has something for you. So click the link in the show notes and follow the fiction. Writing made easy podcast today. That's a really great question. And I don't know the answer. I think the ones I've come across before have all sort of been very reminiscent of like Japanese household spirits. Mm. But I can't speak to it holistically. So maybe it's a good topic for the future. It sounds interesting. I mean, and also just Iceland is so physically beautiful with the lush green and the, you know, the Northern lights and the waterfalls that it's just like a really good setting for, for like fairy holes and these beautiful little environmental elementals to live, you know. Don't forget about the fjords. If I was a fairy, like that's where I would wanna live. Really? Yes. Hmm. Where would you wanna live? I like New York. You'd wanna be an invisible elf in New York. Yes. Easily. Not in a spring Creek. Creek. <laugh> no, don't need a Creek. You wanna be in a concrete jungle? I, I, I feel like I, I do my best work here.<Laugh> okay. Teaches own. So there's also, and I wonder Alan, if you know this, because you are the local Greek mythology expert, but there's also a cap of invisibility from Greek mythology. Oh the Helma Hades. So I suppose, so the cap or helmet has been worn by Hades Athena Perus and Hermes throughout different tails. Yeah. And it turns you invisible, right? That's the one. Yeah. But again, you know, this is very, very surface level and I'm sure there's more invisible entities from different cultures, but just to give you like a taste of what's out there and to say, I don't think any of these directly correlate to the bulk of today. Sure. Yeah. So we just wasted your time. You're welcome. But now you have a much more interesting topic to look up on your own.<Laugh> there you go. The invisible man was released by universal in 1933. It was directed by James whale, the film stars, Claude rains, Gloria Stewart and William Harrington. The screenplay was written by RC sheriff with contributions from Preston Sturgis. And as we know was based on the novel by HG. Wells. Have, have you read the book. Parts of it? Yes. Not in its entirety. How does it read. It's okay, well actually hear a bit of it next week. Spoiler alert. And it is very, the beginning is very aligned with the film. So if you've seen the original, you kind of have a sense of the novel. That's good. I mean, I've, I've always wanted to dive more into HG Wells just being like one of the early science fiction guys. Yeah. It's super fun stuff. It's just, I I've found some of his writing to be just a little dense mm-hmm <affirmative> or just, I don't know. It's just an older style that doesn't really, it lends itself to retailings much better than the original source material from the modern lens. Well, I'm going to give you a gift right now. So next week in the lunatic library episode, that will be on invisible man. We are going to be blessed by Bob Dawn from Bob shorts, story hour. The Bob Dawn from Bob shorts story hour. The very one will be reading a we'll be reading an excerpt from the book for us as part of the series, but that's not where it ends. There's more folks, which is that on his podcast, Bob star story hour, he's actually going to do a serialized release of the entire novel timed with our exploration. So if you are interested in reading it, you can head over. And because we've talked about this a billion times, how there's been so many books and novels that have been difficult for us to read our short stories, writing that's dense and old mm-hmm <affirmative> and John or somebody. Who's a really good reader of that sort of thing. And it suddenly comes to life. So if you are interested in diving into that, that will be coming over on Bob's short story hour. This isn't the same Bob from hidden Oaks. Is it. The very one? You got the hidden Oaks guy to. Do this. He does it all. Doesn't it? That's. Incredible.<Laugh> so let's talk a little bit about this book that Bob's gonna be reading. The novel was originally serialized and released in Pearson's weekly in 1897. It was also released as a book the same year in 1897, but it first came out as a serial. Do you happen? I mean, this is not a question for either of us <laugh> but do you know why books were often released in like these serialized chapters and like these little magazines? Almost? I don't know, actually, but that is a really good question. I just imagine it was just like how things were done, but there's, there's usually a fun reasons explanations. Well, I do know. I think that's how we get the phrase cliff hanger, because like literally someone in one of the stories was like hanging off a clip in one chapter, but you'd have to buy the next issue. So it was like a way to sell more magazines. Typical. Yeah.<laugh> the science fiction novel tells the story of a man named Griffin Griffin or the invisible man is a mad scientist type who is researching ways to turn the body invisible by manipulating the body's refractive index. Refractive index. That is the term we were trying to think of when we were talking about putting a glass in submersing in water.<Laugh> that's right. The great debate of the crystal underwater palace. That's correct. Heard around. The world. Yeah. Cuz the refractive index goes to some, something that I don't know with how the numbers go. We're gonna assume that zero is invisible. That could be blatantly wrong. Mm-hmm <affirmative> or, or maybe it's like one because that's what water, I don't know. I'm really guessing numbers here, but when you put the glass underwater, it becomes almost the exact same refractive index of the water that it's in. Got it. So you can't see it. Invisible glass. Yes. Yes it is.<Laugh> so though it might not be super clear to us now as modern audiences. So the invisible man was actually incredibly impactful at the time. HGS became known as a prominent figure in science fiction and Griffin was cemented as a sci-fi and horror trope. Also Griffin was his last name. Mm-hmm <affirmative> do you remember his first name in this? No, but we'll find out next week. Oh, I, I only bring it up, uh, because well, they, they use the last name of Griffin as a trope throughout so many invisible manes movies. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and then they just keep changing the first name because it's like either at homage or well, in the original franchise, they make it tangentially related, uh, by having him be like a distant cousin or something. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. But yeah, just it's. Their nod to the original work, you know. But yeah, just as a quick fun note. Yeah. Griffin is the family name mm-hmm<affirmative> well now you just got me thinking, what did Dracula have a first name? Cause he's like count DRACS is, is. Vlad. VAD he's count, count Vlad, Dracula. He's VD. I think the third or something VED the, I inhaler. Flawed the, I inhaler flawed. Dracula. The inhaler was his like actual historical name. What do you mean historic? What? Like that's the person who everything is based on. Oh. No way. Yeah. Didn't know. I don't remember. I didn't remember that. Well, maybe it's time for a refresher. I guess so that's cool. Mm-hmm<affirmative> count flaw. No, just flaw. <laugh> flaw. Dracula. What's his handle? Uh, flaw. Dracula. Okay. Thank you. So it might not be as apparent modern audiences, but HG LS became a very, very prominent figure in science fiction. And Griffin was cemented as a sci-fi horror trope. The book came out in 1897 and in 1913, a Russian writer explored how scientifically possible So from the perspective of somebody from 1913, here's a quote from Wikipedia, quote that from a scientific point of view, a man made invisible by Griffin's method should have been blind because a human eye works by absorbing incoming light, not letting it through completely. Wells seems to show some awareness of this problem in chapter 20, where the eyes of an otherwise invisible cat retain visible retinas. Nonetheless, this would be insufficient because the retina would be flooded with light from all directions that ordinarily is blocked by the opaque sclera of the eyeball. Also any image will be badly blurred if the eye had an invisible cornea and lens end quote, I thought that was an interesting perspective. That's a very interesting perspective. And this is something that doesn't get enough discussion back in the early 19 hundreds. That seems very much, I'm just like picturing all like all like all the people waiting in line to get on the Titanic. And they're just like nerding out hard, you know like, like who would win in a fight between these two guys? It's like, well, let me tell you what the visible man, his eyes would be blurry. Here's why. So he would win. No, it's just, it's just nerd culture that they're just having this big debate about something that is blatantly not real in just treating it with the reverence of hard fact science. Yeah. I don't know. That's an that's wonderful. It's just saying like, no matter what century it is, people don't change. Sure. I sort of take it too that there was maybe a little more, they like, they were actually scientifically challenging it, you know, like that there was a culture of, I'm almost thinking of like the prestige with like these, all of these new advances in science and technology at the time. And they were literally like, this wouldn't work, you know? Like, should we try it? No, it wouldn't work. It's like when people diagnose the, the physics about like inter stellar movies, mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, like ripping apart, like, well this could never happen. Or like, well they, they did. They added this to the production design, cuz it, it explains why they don't explode when they teleport, you know, little, little details like that. And I just think it's fun that we are doing the same thing that people were doing back in early 19 hundreds. Totally. Humans are cyclical, but back to the 1933 film, the invisible man, if you haven't seen the film, the general plot overview is very similar to the book. So Alan, would you like to give us a plot recap? I'm gonna try. So we have this guy named Griffin who is some kind of scientist, some kind of mad scientist. And he creates this formula that can render a living, being completely invisible. Uh, and in the process, I don't know if it's from the formula or just the, the power makes you go crazy, but they always go mad and they get homicidal and they go on rampages. So in the beginning of the film, he is he's he rents a room and he tries and he asks for absolute privacy because he just needs some space to work, uh, to work on a cure, to make himself visible again. And of course he gets interrupted and he loses his mind. And then there's like a whole witch hunt to, you know, get rid of him. He retaliates. And then things just escalate from there to the point where he becomes this mass murderer that the entire town has to track down, which is very difficult. Cuz you know, he's invisible. That was very well said. Thank you. I, I had to backed a few times because there's so many different retellings of this story through the various remakes and reboots. You did miss one important thing though. What's that. You missed the NRA logo at the beginning of the film. Uh, yeah, the whole thing, the, the movie is sponsored by the NRA, which is really interesting cuz he never, I don't think he ever even used the gun. The adventures of Donald, the McQueen grapher tell please Willie. Well, my theory concerns the leaders of the third Ray and is founded upon by discovery that LF Hitler had only ever been to one ball being yes. And oddly enough, that was held in the Albert Hall. One of the other Nazi leaders, for example of Goring, oh, well Goring had attended two balls, but both it teams were unusually sport affairs and Himler Himler was somewhat similar and Gus, no balls at all for poor old Gus I'm afraid. It's a really good reminder for us all to write into our local lawmakers. I know gun law has changed state to state, but great time to write into your local lawmakers and makers and tell them how important gun reform is here in the United States. For any us listeners, it's actually an incredibly popular film with a whopping 94% and run tomatoes. Can I say one thing about this movie? Yes. I think it's my new favorite universal monster movie. Wow. <affirmative> wow. It replaced creature. I won't say that, but I'm glad that you found it replaces Wolfman for you. Wolfman. I love wear wolfs. The Wolfman. Movie's kind of boring. Okay. Well you think they're all boring. Yeah, but this one wasn't this one's really exciting. <laugh>. From a filmmaking perspective, the thing that really stands out about this film are the special effects that went into creating an invisible man at the time. Imagine the invisible man removing his bandages and clothing in 1933 to reveal a totally transparent figure. It would've been astounding to audiences at the time and it still stands up today. Looks it still works today. Looks. Yeah. So Alan, do you know how the effects were done? I'm going to make an as I'm gonna guess. I don't know because this whole thing was filmed in black and white. I have no idea how black and white things were done. Okay. I just assume, cuz it's like even during the early days of color they would use blue screen. You're not totally off, but I'll tell you. Okay. Oh I'm obviously it's some kind of double exposure. Okay. So it was actually done by using a double exposure or multi exposure and with layering in post production, there was no way to do it within camera or practical effects at the time John P. Fulton is responsible for developing the they layered film on top of each other with different exposure levels to create the final scene. One layer was the scene without the actor. So okay. The background, the second layer was the actor wearing dark clothing and another layer where the background was draped in velvet and finally specialist painted over the film to correct any issues. Oh, that's such a pain mm-hmm<affirmative> holy cow. Quoting from the screen rant article by Sarah Baya Milner quote. When Griffin played by rains is on screen. He has often seen wrapped in bandages and fully clothed. However, the story called for numerous instances in which Griffin commits acts while invisible whale, who was the director realized he would have to give the invisible character subtle things to do on screen that would indicate his presence such as a chair, sinking slightly as it sat upon then scooted forward. When Griffin wants to talk confidently, the special effects team led by industry legend, Arthur Edson, cinematographer for iconic new films. Like the multi Falcon created the effect in the invisible man, largely with a combination of practical effects using hidden wires and stage hands, which were sold through the PMI of the other onscreen actors end quote. So as a whole, it wasn't just the Invis, like the scenes where we see him in clothing. Mm-hmm <affirmative> you have to think about the scenes where he sits on a chair and we see the compression or the little him scooting a chair, like the little minor things that really sell the character to us. Oh absolutely. And they're very successful at that. He has a lot of energy in the film even when he's not seen. Right. And you know, all those things are like, that's easy to identify, you know, but it's like, wow, look at that. You know like when he sits in the chair and you know, like, yeah, it's just like a little special effects chair where the cushion sinks down through like a little, I don't know, deflating bag or a little wire apparatus that someone's pulling. I don't know. Yeah. Uh, but it's just fun. Those things are like those little attention to detail is what sell the film. Totally. One of the reasons why I resonated so well with this is cuz I think he's the most interesting villain of the bunch he is. So Griffin's character, he's very smart. He's also malicious. And he just has like a, really his, his voice alone is so commanding. Mm. And like, I, that's pretty important when the person can't be seen, you know, but the guy is scary and he just like it. These movies are so dated that it's kind of tough to evoke a feeling of genuine fear. But like Griffin is creepy as fuck, you know, like it, if, when he's in the room and he makes it very clear when like he's just touching something or speaking, and then he just stops speaking for a moment and stops touching and the characters lose their mind cuz they have absolutely no idea where he is. Oh yeah. Definitely. At it's like a, they play with tension very well. It's just a good reminder of just what kind of power he holds over these people. Cause he is, he's just a totally normal guy. Well, he goes, he loses his mental stability. I'll say. Well, what I'm. Saying that makes him dangerous. Right. Well, what I'm saying is he's like he has no more special abilities than your average person, but on outside of not being able to see him mm-hmm <affirmative> but when people are just like having a conversation with him and they're kind of, maybe they forget for a moment just how dangerous he is. And then he just does, like, one of the gags of just goes silent for a moment, takes a step back and they are just reminded just how dangerous this guy can be. The other very iconic, special effect scene comes at the end of the film when the invisible man is walking through the snow and we see his footprints appearing in it. How do they do that? So to do this, the filmmakers built foot shaped platforms that were held in place by pegs. And they put that they put these platforms underneath the rock salt that they used to represent the snow on film. Huh. And so as the pegs were pulled by, you know, the special effects department or the PA or whoever the rock salt would drop into the shape of footprints.<Laugh>, that's cool. The budget for this film was just over a$382,000. And I had a hard time finding that revenue for the film was actually incredibly low, what I could find. So I'm not gonna quote that number, but we will go over the, the gross income for the rest of them. 300 8300 $80,000. You said. 3 28, 3 28. And CA and adjusted for inflation. That would be. 12 Billion. 12 Billion. Wow. Yeah. Right. Pretty good. Pretty good returns. No wonder they had pegs <laugh>. Seven years later, we are gifted with the first sequel. The invisible man returns directed by Joe May, may was an Austrian filmmaker and largely credited with expanding German cinema. So he was like a big influential European filmmaker. Hmm. We have a fresh cast, including Vincent Price, Cedric Hardwick, Nan gray and John Sutton, the plot centers around the Vincent Price character who is wrongly accused of murder and thus begs Griffin to inject him with the invisibility serum, despite Griffin's warning that it will drive him insane. The special effects again done by John P. Fulton, along with Bernard B brown and William Hedgecock were nominated for an Oscar in the special effects category that year, the second film had a budget of $243,000 engrossed over $815,000, which surely helped to inspire the many more sequels that came after the film was overall fairly well received though. Some critics said that the surprise of the effects had worn off from the shock of the first film that it was, you know, we've seen it now. So it wasn't quite as awe-inspiring, despite that the film comes in strong on Ron tomatoes at 87%. Well, I feel like a fool because I went to watch the sequel to invisible man. And I watched the invisible man's revenge, not the invisible man's return. I thought this was the sequel, but apparently some Googling would've let me know that it is actually the fifth movie in the series. Not the second. Yeah. So let us pause here and say there are six films. We have the invisible man. We have the invisible man returns, the invisible woman, invisible agent, the invisible man's revenge that you watched and to round it out, we have Abba and Costello meet the invisible man. And though that's the official universal like first batch of films. So we have six films in that, in that series. It, I mean, I should have seen this one coming the jump in special effects between invisible man and invisible man's revenge is huge. Like the invisible man's revenge, the, the special effects are absolutely incredible. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I mean, they're good in the first one, but there's like a, they're like amazing. I think what happened was John Fulton who was credited with the postproduction special effects in the first film mm-hmm<affirmative> he goes on to like lead the department in all of the following films except for the Abbot Castello film. So I think they realized he was the guy he's the guy and gave him much more creative control over the special effects. Yep. So shall we now talk about the invisible woman from 1940? Yeah, I really, I, I had trouble tracking this movie down. Yes. But you can watch the trailers on YouTube, which are hilariously outdated, but also make it look like a really, really cool film in the same year as the sequel. So also in 1940, we get the third film in the franchise. The invisible woman, the script was written by Joe May who directed the second film and the invisible woman was directed by a Edward Sutherland. I will say that every single invisible man film was directed by somebody different. So there's six different directors. It stars, Virginia Bruce, John Howard, and John Barrymore. Uh, you can actually listen to our 100th episode. If you wanna learn a little bit more about John Barrymore, some fun. PS drew Barrymore's father. It's like her grand great grandfather or something. Her grandfather. Drew Barry Moore, drew Barrymore's ancestor. A re relative of drew Barrymore. Yes. Who stayed often at the haunted Algonquin hotel in New York city. But the plot of the invisible woman deviates from the first two films instead of an invisibility serum, this film centers around an invisibility machine created by professor Gibbs. Gibbs is looking for a test subject and kitty Carroll, a model answers the call weirdly somehow this like the plot of this film reminds me a little bit of the fly. The budget was just over $269,000. And it brought in over 660 K. So again, still incredibly profitable. Yeah. I, I do wish I had been able to see this movie cuz it seems like it's a riot. Absolutely. Yes. 1942 brings us invisible agent, not the invisible agent, just invisible agent. And it's categorized as more of an action in spy film. It's still in, in the world, but more of a spy film directed by Eddo El Marin and screenplay by Kurt. So mark. See, that makes sense. Uh, if, if you're gonna have a spy make him invisible, that's like a, that's great. What a great use of an invisibility serum. Right? That makes sense. Yeah. So this film actually brought in over a million dollars. So I think it was the most profitable of the films at the time. That's. Great. Then of course we have your favorite, the invisible man's revenge from 1944, which brings us back to the horror genre. I won't say it's my favorite. Well, I, but you. Watched it, but it was a lot of fun. Go, please give us, give us the summary. The logline I'll say is that there is a person who is being held in a mental illness, correction facility of sorts and is given the invisibility serum and then kind of chaos ensues. Yeah. It's a bad idea to give this guy powers. Yeah, but I mean maybe I miss something, but it kind of seemed like this guy just walks into this guy's laboratory when he's doing invisibility experiments and is like, Hey, this is pretty cool. And the guy's like, yeah, but I really wanna test it on a person. And the guy's like, oh, let you can test it on me. This's fine. And then he makes him invisible and he's like, wow, it worked. This is so incredible. I'm gonna be a famous scientist. And then he visible manages pieces. He's like, I got stuff to do.<laugh> and the, and like the doctor loses his mind. Hi, I'm Michael and I'm mark. And we are the dueling dungeon masters masters. The dueling dungeon masters podcast is a live play tabletop role playing podcast with not one, but, but two dungeon masters working together and, and sometimes against one another to create one awesome story for our players. That's twice the excitement, twice the conflict and twice the fun. So ready your weapons, prepare your spells and come along on a journey with the doling dungeon. Well, that's why it's not humane to test that sort of thing on people. I mean, he was testing on dogs and a parrot successfully. And. So that ones now given an invisible parrot flying around. Because they just put it in the cage and you could just see the little swing going back and forth and it would squawk. That's cute. Uh, but in the dog they just had like the old like harness on a rigid leash. Mm-hmm <affirmative> trick sure. To like walk it around. But it was funny because eventually you see the dog at the end of the movie, cuz the, the, the, the shtick in this one is that for the first time in any invisible movie, he can become visible again. At. Will, not at will. And that's actually a plot point how they have a process for becoming visible again and it's working until it doesn't work anymore. And then like, there's the whole, like, it becomes super unstable, whether he's visible, where he is invisible or not. Gotcha. Um, and there's also something to do with like blood transfusions in order to do it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm<affirmative>, it, it, it got a little, it got a little convoluted<laugh> but, uh, what I loved it about this movie is it's so gimmicky, you know, not since the first movie, do you just like, are you wowed by like, oh look, that's kind of cool. Right. Uh, and just like all, all the things that he does as, while being invisible is just hilarious. I think that's a point I was reading about this film that most of the major, like film, reviewer magazines or newspapers, like the a bunch of them were kinda like we get it enough. But the Hollywood reporter specifically was like, this was the best of them. All people were picking up on that as well, that they just really were like playing around with the invisibility and, and some people reacted well to that. And some people were like, yeah, we. Get it. So there's this one really long scene where our newly invisible guy goes into this like guy's house. Uh, they like, they get, I guess they like know each other and he is like, you know what, we're gonna go make some real money. And then they go down to the bar and the guy, the visible guy is instructed to just start challenging people to darts for, for five, $5. Then our visible guy is just like, he'll hold the darts in his hand. And they'll just magically float from his hand to like the bullseye, no matter what his shot is. Like sometimes he'll like shoot between his legs. He'll like put them on top of an accordion. And as he plays the accordion, all five darts will go simultaneously into the bullseye. Mm. And you just have to think about the absurdity of this. Uh, he's winning these like small denomination games. Meanwhile, there is a naked man slowly walking, darts, back and forth through this crowded bar. There's like a fully, just naked, invisible right there. And he is just doing all sorts of things. Whether it's like making this guy do bull's eyes picking fights with people, uh, to claim more winnings. It's just absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. And this scene goes on for a long time.<Laugh> very silly. The special effects in this one are really, really great besides like all like the little practical effects, uh, of like what you were saying earlier of when you can't see him at all. Just the, the little nuances as, as a person interacts with Yeah. So like the they're absolutely everywhere in this, the actual visual effects of turning, not so much turning invisible actually. Yeah. Of the, of turning invisible or returning to visibility, cuz there's a lot of in between phases in this movie, because again, the, the, the formula or the, the medical process becomes unstable mm-hmm <affirmative> and there are, there's like one scene where he's like running around a house, trying to find privacy because he realizes that he's turning invisible. Again, his clothes are perfectly opaque, but his, his body is starting to become translucent and it looks perfect. And again, he's like, there's lots of motion to the scene. This isn't just like, you know, a cutoff painted effect. It look, it looks great. Yeah. And that's why I was so surprised because I thought this was the direct sequel to invisible man and the special effects had come leaps and bounds and just, well, I guess it's, it'd been a while between the two movies. It it's been a while, but it's also been like 10 years, you know? And it's, so it's not been like 20 or 30 years and they still, you know, it was the time where these kinds of effects were expanding so quickly in cinema. Yep. The final film of the first universal series, invisible man is Abbot and Costello meet the invisible man, which came out in 1951. Is this a favorite in the Brer household? I actually don't know that we watched this one as much growing up, but any ABT in Costello is always a hit at the, in the Brer household. I did, I did not see this one either. And I really wish I had cuz it sounds like it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, we should just do like an Abba in Costello episode at some point. So we can get, have the opportunity to binge them all. If not, for any other reason. He won't even do it for the podcast. Screw you guys.<Laugh> so there's two things I wanna talk about quickly that are not films at this point in history. Okay. Few years before the Abba and Castello film in 1947, there's an episode of Tom and Jerry episode 33 called the invisible mouse. And it has to do with invisible ink <laugh>, which is what turns the mouse invisible and a show of course drives the cat crazy. But it's just very cute. And I think it's interesting cuz like now we see like episodes of like future drama that take on certain horror films. Right. But it's funny to see like at the time, like in 1947, because the invisible man was such a thing that an episode of Tom and Jerry takes on, you know, the invisible man trope, it's kind of cute. It. Is one thing that we forgot to talk about right at the while discussing the first movie is this is, this is just like a fun factoid that we looked up a long time ago, but the invisible man, at least at the time we looked it up. I don't know if it's still the case holds the highest kill count of any movie villain. So the invisible man comes in at number three, I'm looking at a screen rant article right now called iconic horror villains ranked kill counts. Interesting. Comes in at number three at 123 kills. He is beat out by Michael Myers in number two at 133. And Jason VOR he's in number one at 151 kills. Interesting. I would've guessed that Michael Myers had indeed taken the top place. Mm-hmm <affirmative> especially watching Halloween kills. This might have come out before this article might be 2020. So yeah, this is not inclusive of Halloween. Kills. Well, even with the Halloween reboot, like the Michael Meyer movie, Michael, the Halloween movies are still coming out and every time it's just like a massive blood bath. Yeah, for sure. But the Jason four, he surprises me there hasn't been a Jason movie in a long time. I guess he was pretty lucrative when he had the chance. So maybe we just got bad Intel. Yeah. Maybe did you know Alan that in 1984 released by the BBC, there was an invisible man limited edition series. No, I did not. Six episodes. That's kind of cool. It's kind of cool in theory. And it remains according to what I was reading the most faithful to the original book. Okay. Like film version or TV version that it has been made. But. I understand what faithful means.<Laugh> but it's largely thought of as very boring and slow, but here's an, there's an interesting quote that I wanna read to cuz it made me laugh. It's from Wikipedia. Okay. Quote, although originally intended to be screened on Sunday afternoons, like the BBC's other classic cereals, it was instead shown on a Tuesday evening slot after the BBC's head of drama declared the series was too frightening for a Sunday afternoon, far too horrific. And that's the boring version. Wow. The series stars PIP Donah he as Griffin AKA the invisible man. But again overall it was not met with a lot of positive reception. That's a bummer. Yeah. But moving on to far more exciting things. Okay. 2000 the year is 2000. We have survived Y2K mm-hmm <affirmative> and with it comes the hollow man. Hollow. Man's great. I disagree, but we'll get into. I can love Kevin bacon. I like Kevin bacon. I don't like this film. So the hollow man is a film from 2000. It is not part of the universal monster series, but there's just like so many alignments with the, this plot and the original films we needed to include it. Do you wanna give us a log line? Recap on. Yeah. Uh, Kevin bacon is a scientist. Who's making animals turn visible and then he gets all like Huberty and injects the serum into himself because he wants to begin human trials immediately and guess what it works, but then he goes crazy cuz they, it always makes you crazy. And then he goes on a rampage. And he like sexual assaults, women. It's he gets the, the, he, he gets seduced by the newfound power of anonymity. We're not defending him. So hollow man was directed by Paul over Hoen who is known for his violent and overtly sexual films. Beres. And you watched that film growing up, right? Oh. Yeah. I love that movie. Yeah. I had not heard of it until we met and we watched it a. Few years ago. It's a great movie. First off. It, it checks all the boxes for me of horror, but with like a lot of like sciencey stuff to like make all the pseudoscience that goes in behind it. Like they really just like dump it all onto you to be like, and this is why it actually works. Uh, and then it just gets, and then it just gets super cool where then you like the, the scene. It was actually like the trailer shot when all the sprinklers go off and you see like the invisible Kevin bacon slowly just like dragging the crowbar. Yeah. Uh, along the ground and the like, but all like the, the sprinklers are cascading down his invisible body. So you just like see the shimmer of him. Mm-hmm.<Affirmative> I do remember that scene. Yeah. It was striking visually. Very well. I thought this was a good example of how dangerous somebody can be. Mm-hmm <affirmative> simply when they go a little nuts and all the morals turn off. Sure. Because he's like a normal guy. He is, you know, he's just a scientist. He's not some green beret, but he just goes on this crazy rampage and you know, he does great. I guess. So you mean he does great because he's strong. Is that what you're saying? Like he he's successful at killing he's. A, he's a very efficient killer. He's a villain. Yes. Yeah. I just wanna make sure we're thinking of him that way. You sound a little, like you're idolizing him. Do you care about the protagonist in this movie? Cuz I didn't in this case, like the villain is the protagonist, you know, it's all about him. Sure. I didn't care about any of the other characters. Fuck. Them. I mean, they were literally like a lot of their archetypes were built up just to be fodder for, you know, invisible guy kills, which is fine. You know, like that that's a trope in lots of horror movies, especially that era. So overall Alan likes it a lot more than I do, but it certainly, I think is it's like the perfect middle ground between the original universal series and the reboot, which we'll get to at the end, I feel it's like a very nineties feeling version of the invisible man. Hmm. So I'm going in chronological order here. So I'm going to deviate away from hollow man for just a moment. Well, we are coming back to it. We are coming back to it. But in 2003, a little film was released called the league of extraordinary gentlemen, which we watched. For this count of a 10 movie. It's perfect. It's a, I love the submarine. I gotta say, I remember loving it in the theaters. I still love it. Now this film came out three years after hollow man. It's based on comic books by Alan Moore and it star Sean Connery. And I think many people, many of our peer set of our age peer set will remember seeing it in theaters in 20, in 2003. I mean it was the quintessential blockbuster movie. It's so the overall log line is that like one of every there's like 10, what of these like monsters or creatures or amped up humans from different like folklore stories and different like films and they're all put together to be the league of extraordinary gentlemen. So you have like Dorian gray, you have the invisible man, you have a vampire woman. Thi this movie gets significantly more fun. When you become familiar with the source material for each individually. You have captain Nemo. Yeah, exactly. It's like, are you ever gonna see captain Nemo be like this like badass swashbuckling genius engineer? Probably not. Right. So I guess it's all like literary figures that are taken into the league. Uh, yeah. I'd I don't know if I don't think quarter main is from anything. I don't. I think he's just from this. Who. Was he. Again? Sean? Connery's. Character. Got it. Well, yeah, he's sort of like the leader. Yeah. But in his case he is just some imperialist hunter mm-hmm <affirmative> who got a curse sorta by this African witch doctor that says he can never be harmed and we never actually see that curse coming to play, but he's because he's just like too good at the job. He doesn't get hurt anyways. And then you have Jacqueline Hyde who they, if, I mean, if you like in the original Jacqueline, Hyde is just kind of like a, a normal guy that kind of turns into another normal guy. Who's like brutish and murdery, you know, like an evil guy and just an evil version of himself. Yeah. But in this, he just turns into the Hulk, which is amazing. He goes from this like Bruce banner type guy to like straight up seven foot tall, eight foot tall behemoth. Right. That he's like the muscle of the group, but he's smart. He's like, he's smart Hulk, but invisible man. So this is a particularly fun invisible man, because they allude to the original source material in saying, wait a minute, I thought the scientist that developed the invisibility formula died, it was in all the papers. And the guy is like, oh yeah, he did. I'm not him. I broke in to steal something and got invisible by accident. Just like the plot of the invisible mouse. With Tom and Jerry. Yeah. I dunno if he got invisible by accident or did it on purpose, but whatever, he seems he regrets the decision regardless because he is invisible all the time, but it's really convenient because he is a thief and he's an excellent thief because he is, you know, invisible. But what if you really loud, like would, what if you were had the option to turn invisible, but you you're like footsteps were 10 times as loud. That'd be pretty inconvenient. Yeah. Gotta wear sneakers. Gotta wear sneakers. Yeah. Hopefully invisible sneakers.<Laugh> in 2006, we were blessed with hollow man. Two, I should say Alan was blessed cuz I wasn't looking for it, but it stars Christian Slater, Peter Elli. Sorry if I pronounce that wrong, but also known as Lyle from Twilight and Laura Regan. And the funny thing is Alan and I both were watching it and we were like that. Kai looked so familiar. Who is it? And I looked it up and that's when we realized it was Carlisle. And then we couldn't unsee it a very young Carlisle. It's true. Despite the fact that Carlisle is supposed to be timeless 20, early 20 something that's right. He was significantly younger in this movie. It was pre. Pre. Vapi mm-hmm <affirmative>. So how does Hollowman two differ from hollow man? One, is it a continuation of. It's it's a loose sequel. It it's in the same universe in that the ho the experiments of hollow man are like carried on mm-hmm<affirmative> like that, that whole incident happened. And then it was like deemed unsafe to make people invisible, which stands to reason. Yeah. And then the us military is like, well, unsafe is what we do best <laugh>. So they recreated the serum start in in order to make, you know, invisible super soldiers. It's gotcha. The perfect sequel movie, the, the black ops government organization steps in. And weaponizes it. Instead of what, making a coherent plot. Um, it's like the invisible spy version from the first series. Sure. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, quite possibly. Where it's just like a logical use of that technology. It is. And in this case, so our protagonist, I dunno if that's our protagonist. No, not our protagonist. Our main antagonist. Christian Slater. Is it Christian Slater? That's the hollow man. Okay. It's hard to tell because he's invisible.<laugh> for most of it mm-hmm <affirmative>, which you know, he's black ops, something military, former Marine. I don't know. They make him invisible. And of course he goes rogue because they have this other mechanic that they have to inject some kind of like deterrent serum in you that keeps you alive. Otherwise you die of like super cancer really fast. Yikes. Yeah. And in this case they don't give him the control marker or whatever it's called in order to keep him on a leash. But he doesn't like that. So he goes rogue and starts killing people. Got it. you have to behave. Otherwise we're not gonna give you this serum to that and you'll die. And he says, fuck you, I'm going to go crazy and take the serum by force. Gotcha. Cause screw you guys. Um, but the, what the takeaway from this film is that you now see an invisible super soldier, which is really cool at first. I thought it gave him super strength too. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because there's one scene where, um, who's the main character. Carlisle. Lyle. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, is like run running away. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I guess. And like the invisible man is like chasing him through a crowd and people are just like flying left and right as if it's like an invisible freight train running through the crowd. Right. And it's like, holy cow, that's terrifying. But then he like trips gets like tapped by a car because he can't, well, they can't see him. Of course they're gonna hit him. Sure. And he like falls through a window. Yikes. He falls through a sheet of glass, like at a bus stop and like, that's the end of him? Like, oh no, that was too much. So clearly he doesn't have superpowers. There was a really cool, I didn't watch the whole film with you, but I came in for a few minutes at the end and there was a really cool scene where someone stabbed him with a pen and the ink, like immediately went through all of his veins. So you could see where he was, but it dissipated really quickly. But I thought visually, that was like a cool, yeah, it. Was cool. That was so smart. Yeah. It, you know, how do you cuz in, in other, um, invisible man movies or even the first hollow man, they're always like doing stuff to try to either get paint on him or powder or something that just betrays yeah. Where he is. And in this case they just stabbed him with a fountain pen. And just so you said his, his veins got mapped with ink, which was so cool, but I guess he metabolized it in like 30 seconds, which is stupid.<Laugh> yeah. I wonder if that's realistic. Yeah. What you gonna do? The one other special thing about this movie is that there's more than one invisible person and you get to see an invisible battle, which would be kind of lackluster from the spectator yeah. Standpoint, but it takes place in the rain. Mm. So it's just like two shimmery people. And a callback to hollow man. One. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But it, it is a little weird when you take a step back when you're like, these are two naked men just like beating the shit out of each other in a parking lot. It's like Greek times, right? Yeah. Yeah. The Greco Roman, uh, fights Olympic games. Wrestling. Yeah. What, what an omage.<Laugh> there's one more invisible person. I wanna mention before we get to the big finale, which is the remake of the invisible man, and that is Susan storm, AKA the invisible woman from Marvel comic books originally written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby. She first appeared in fantastic four number one from 1961 and has appeared in various Marvel films throughout the two thousands. This is Andrew Fitzgerald from the Everytown podcast. And every single week over there, we dive into insane and mysterious, true crime stories. Most of which you've never even heard of. I'm a true crime fan myself. And this is the type of podcast I'd love to listen to one that gives you all the details without any fluff and fillers. So go check out the, every town podcast because every town, no matter how nice it may seem has a dark side. She got her powers from cosmic rays though. No serums. Yeah. But she's still an invisible person worth mentioning. She's. Highly invisible. Yeah. But she can turn visible at will. Just like the hidden folk of Iceland. Just yes. Um, unlike the hidden folk of Iceland though, she can also manipulate force fields. That's pretty. Cool. It's really, it's kind of overpowered honestly. So she can like fly by just like making little force field bubbles around her and moving them around. Mm. Obviously invisibility is kind of cool. She's got a lot of stuff. She she's really, uh, whoever's whoever's writing her can decide how powerful she is, but she's, she's, she's a very complicated character. What does that mean. In that? She's not very cut and dry. Her abilities are, um, expand or are expand or reduced based off who's writing her. Oh, I thought you meant in terms of like her traumatic past or something. Uh, again, this she's been around since what was fantastic for. 61 Was. The common book. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So she's been around for 60 years. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, along that time, a lot of different writers have written her and yeah, I'm sure she has a while. She, it varies from a very happy home life to a super dark and gritty traumatic past. Sure. Cool. Well that is Susan storm. Mm-hmm <affirmative> AKA the invisible woman. And then of course, to round us out, we have the very tense film from 2020 called the invisible man released by universal pictures. It stars Elizabeth MOS and all Oliver Jackson Cohen. The film was written and directed by Lee wonk development on the invisible man actually started in 2016 as part of Universal's dark universe project. But after the failure of the mummy from 2017, starting Tom cruise. Fuck you Tom cruise. Universal canceled the project, but started to think about one off releases. We talked about this many times before, but most recently in the mummy episode that predates this episode, the invisible man from 2020 cost 7 million to make, but it brought in a whopping 142 million. Hell. Yeah. On top of its box office success, it's largely met with critical praise, many speaking, very highly of Elizabeth Moss performance also. And she's a Scientologist. Wow. So that's why she's so good at acting mm-hmm <affirmative> but just kidding. Obviously. You know, it, this is just the first invisible person story. First invisible person metho outside of Sue storm. Okay. You call her Sue storm, your close story like that. What'd you call her. Susan's storm. However, everyone calls her Sue.<Laugh> I don't. Know. I mean, yeah. When she's introduced at like to speak at a conference she's Susan. Well, that's the only familiarity I have with her conference speaking. That's right. Cuz you're always on zoom <laugh> so outside of Sue storm, this is the only invisible person that we've talked about is thus far that doesn't have to be naked to be invisible. Right. And also in all fairness, I think Sue storm does actually have to be naked to be invisible, but uh, read her husband also known as Mr. Fantastic. Yes. Makes her, makes her a very special costume that can turn invisible with her. Same how he makes one for the, uh, human torch that doesn't burst into flames when he mm-hmm <affirmative> well, it does burst into flames, but doesn't consume, you know, very cool. Yep. So anyways, you have a guy wearing a suit in this one that makes him invisible, which is just such a better take on it. You always see that character, like the they're they're grappling with the invisible person and then they lose track of them for a second and they just start like flailing, wildly hoping to hit them. Mm-hmm<affirmative> there's a good chance. You're just gonna like brush, you know, it's it's right there. You're really obsessing over the fact that people are naked. You really like keep bringing it up it's and I'm, I'm not even gonna address the fact that you just said the word [inaudible]. You just. Did. I'm gonna bleep it all out. Listeners. Don't need to listen to that and potty mouth. But yeah. You know what you just like, can you just imagine you're like, where are you? Oh, excuse me. Well, hopefully he'll be better at, he'll be quick on the draw with that one. But yeah, he's wearing a suit. So he is actually clothed, which is great. I mean, this film is like super, super tense. It was very scary. It's largely rooted. The whole plot is that the Elizabeth MOS character is dating this super scientist guy. Who's like an entrepreneur, but also a scientist, like a very, very wealthy, you know, almost like an Elon Musk type. I hate to say it probably a lot smarter and she's trapped in this like very controlling, abusive, violent relationship. And it's like her trying to escape from this person. Who's not just like wealthy and powerful, but also can turn invisible. Yeah. It's a big one. And it's, you're just like on the edge of your seat for her the whole time. It's very, it's a, it's a hard film, I think in that way, especially if that's like something that's really upsetting to you, but it's really, really well done. And I think such a perfect modern remake of the original, you know. It was great. Yeah. I, I we've said it before. We'll say it again. Uh, I hope that the dark universe continues. Absolutely. This version of the story was inspired by the HG Wells original novel. But again, like I said, it also is adapted heavily for modern audiences in July of 2020. It was announced an official sequel is in the works. Additionally in 2019, Elizabeth Banks started development on a script for a reboot of the invisible woman from 1940, which is also part of Universal's dark universe project. Oh, interesting. That's cool. Yes. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I think I was reading that Elizabeth Banks pretty much had like her pick of what she wanted to do and she chose the invisible woman, which we're excited for. Only she had chosen creature. Yeah. I do wanna pause before we conclude the episode, because I think something that is overwhelmingly true with many of these films, almost that maybe all of them, except for the league of extraordinary gentlemen, is that the theme and the plot, even if it's adapted into different skins, the Cru, the crux of it is so clear and repetitive and formulaic, not in a bad way, which is this like rise and fall of this mad scientist type that gets consumed. And then eventually is driven mad by their work. I think all of these films do it in a really different, fresh way. It does. I'm not saying that because it feels stale, but it's interesting in science fiction, we see that a lot. Right. We see that in Frankenstein, we see it in a lot of the major science fiction films, and we're also working on, uh, an upcoming episode. That's gonna call upon that theme quite a bit. So I just wanted to point that out because it's gonna be tied into that in a few weeks as well. So it's just, you know, it's interesting, like you can, you could kind of like sum up that like character journey and apply it to most of these films. Cool. And yeah, there, there are quite a few invisible man and woman versions and films out there more than we expected. I really truly thought going into this, that there was one, I think I even said that to Alan and then we looked it up and there was quite a few more not to mention all of the different spin spinoffs and remakes throughout the year. So hopefully this was interesting to you guys. We had a lot of fun learning about this very, again, like prominent trope that you maybe aren't thinking about that way, but really has Hollywood has gotten a lot of use out of it. So now we're gonna go play the board game horrified where you can play against the invisible man. Yes, I am so happy. You mentioned that we, we forgot to mention it in the creature episode. So a few years ago you got me a board game called horrified where you play us, you could pick, you play against some of the classic universal monsters. We play it throughout. The pandemic was super fun for my birthday this year. You got me a new version, which is American crypted, which we also played and it was super fun. And so anyone who listens to this podcast I think would enjoy those games indeed. Yeah. As always, thank you all so much for being here. Remember to join us again next week, in addition to Bob's excerpt from the original HTU L's work, which I'm over the moon, excited for. We also have an original short story that is really exciting as well. I'm super, super excited for next week's stories until next time I hope you're staying well. And of course stay spooky. And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. If you'd like some bonus content consider supporting us on Patreon to access our patron exclusive podcast, horror movie club. 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