The Invisible Man

Reworks Universal's monster into a film about a woman not being believed, and the empty corners of the frame do the work.

Cecilia escapes a controlling relationship with a wealthy optics engineer. He is reported dead. Things begin happening that she cannot prove.

Leigh Whannell's technique is the film: the camera repeatedly pans away from Cecilia to hold on an empty part of a room for a beat too long. Sometimes there is something there. Mostly there is not, and the audience is put in exactly her position of scanning for a threat everybody else says is imaginary.

The kitchen sequence and the restaurant are the two everybody remembers.

Elisabeth Moss plays it as a woman who is exhausted rather than hysterical, which is the choice that makes the abuse reading land.

Made for 7 million after a much larger monster-universe version collapsed. It took over 140 million.