The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

 Genre: Horror, Revenge

 Source: Rental, Netflix

 Grade: A-

   I have to say I am absolutely a HUGE fan of the original novel The Invisible Man by H.G Wells, and the original movie made by James Whale and starring Claude Rains as The Invisible Man, as well as being one of my favourite charecters in Alan Moore`s comic book The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman. But as for this squeal, I must say I very much enjoyed it but it still just wasn`t as amazing as I had hoped for. Still a great squeal as far as Horror movie squeals go. 

   The story picks up fairly quickly and despite being kinda long for this particular type of movie it had a very quick engaging pace. A basic synopsis of this movie would be the brother of the original Invisible Man replicates his experiments in becoming invisible.But he tests it on a innocent Death Row inmate, in an effort to not only help the man escape an unfair death but test his experiment, which ended up being successful. The only problem is he can`t figure out how to keep him from going insane from the side effects of the being invisible(an example of this would be what happened to Claude Rains in the original one, he went psychotic!). So now not only does this new Invisible Man  have to stay one step ahead of the police but he has to fight time before he is driven completely insane AND find out who framed him for the murder of his brother.

  The film also had a great cast with such actors as my favourite actor of all time Vincent Price playing the Invisible Man and Cedric Hardwicke as the movie`s antagonist, who puts in one of his finest performances in this movie, if I don`t say so myself. Now about Vincent Price this is not his first horror movie role like many people on the Internet claim it is, NO he had a supporting role in the Horror movie Tower Of London a year earlier. This is just his first horror movie to have a staring role in. And in comparison to his portral of the Invisible Man to Claude Rains take on the charecter. I must say I felt Claude Rains was more memorable and better suited at the time for the role. BUT I still think Vincent Price is a better actor I just feel Claude Rains was a better Invisible Man.

  Then the effects were incredible! It was eve nominated for an Oscar in Special Effects, though unfortunately  I don`t think it won. Even some of the costume designs in this movie were freaky and awesomer then the usual horror movie of this decade. For example when the police lock the Invisible Man up in this one house and begin to gas the house in efforts to find him, it was the costumes these police men were wearing that were just awesome! It was like a helmet, a really creepy looking gas mask, and all black trench coats. All the while they had these huge gas packs on. To me this was just simply awesome.

   So my final thoughts on this movie are it was great squeal, with a awesome cast, and phenomenal special effects. But it just is not as good as the original one from 1933 directed by James Whale. Now please don`t let me discourage you from watching this movie! Overall it was a great movie, the script was obviously well thought out and the direction was almost as good as the first ones but nothing beats that one.