32 Things I Learned about 'The Invisible Man' from the Blu-ray Bonus Features

After a bumpy and too-brief run through theaters earlier this year, Leigh Wannell’s The Invisible Man was one of the first “test” films to hit home streaming platforms while it was still technically supposed to be in theaters (which were suddenly closed because of the pandemic).

In a very real sense, it was part of the trial run to see how the industry could survive in a radically changed environment. I’m not sure if we’ve seen definitive results yet, since we’re still in the thick of it, but I do know that The Invisible Man got a bum deal and was released at exactly the wrong time.

Well, the good news is that it’s now available on Blu-ray (and DVD and digital), and I’m happy to say it’s absolutely worth picking up. You can certainly look elsewhere for glowing praise of the horror film and its “reimagining” of the classic Universal character. There are plenty of articles dissecting the film’s masterful take on socially relevant issues. You can even look here for our own opinions of Benjamin Wallfisch’s stellar soundtrack for the film.

But the Blu-ray release, though it includes several deleted scenes and brief featurettes, is WELL worth its price for one reason alone: Leigh Whannell’s director’s commentary.

I’m not a regular watcher of commentary tracks, and that’s mostly because they’re one step up from PR fluff. They’re too often filled with inside jokes and Hollywood types who like to hear themselves talk.

In this case, however, writer/director Whannell gives a master class in filmmaking, reveals all the secrets of the film and how they made it, and will have you legit laughing out loud for 2 hours. It’s HIGHLY entertaining and insightful.

So, without further ado, here’s what I learned.

THERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

Leigh Whannell started filming (as he usually does) with a prayer to the movie gods, where he asked – among other things – forgiveness from producers when they inevitably get mad at him for shooting dozens of takes.
Whannell equates filmmaking to the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones is running away from the boulder… except that it lasts for a a month.
When he was writing the script, Whannell knew that invisibility had to be something the audience would accept. It couldn’t be a “magic potion.” He did extensive research into the technology of how it could conceivably work in real life.
The overall story didn’t cycle through multiple versions. It grew out of a single idea – a victim being stalked – and stuck to that.
Likewise, the ending of the film never changed. It was the same in every conception and draft of the story.

1. Throughout, Whannell consciously tried to “weaponize the audience’s knowledge of movies against them.” He set up shots and scenes so the audience thought they knew what would happen… and then pulled the rug out from under them.
2. He wanted to do things that were counterintuitive to traditional horror movies, such as leaving the lights on. An invisible man doesn’t need to hide in darkness.
3. Apparently, the invisibility suit is a trypophobic’s nightmare, but it wasn’t done intentionally.
4. Whannell is vocal that the best visual effects in the film are closeups of Elisabeth Moss’s face.
5. The entire film (except for a few pickups) was filmed in Australia. However, since it was set in San Francisco, they had to make every location look like it’s in the United States. This proved surprisingly challenging.
6. For example, the mailbox outside of James’s house had to be shipped over from the States since mailboxes in Australia look different.
7. For another example, it took the crew 3 hours to find a milk container that resembles one you’d find in the States (for scenes in James’s kitchen).
8. “90% of being on a film set is standing in the wrong place.”
9. The film made extensive use of motion capture cameras, which are essentially programmable robots with cameras. Once they start, they move where they’re programmed to move, so the actors have to act to an audible running count and hit their marks at exactly the right time since the camera will keep moving.

1. 1. The opening titles proved extremely difficult to make since water is very hard to do in CGI, and the waves are entirely computer generated.
  2. Composer Benjamin Wallfisch composed music for the opening scene (where Cecilia escapes from Adrian’s house). This was ultimately cut, though, since the silence and sound of the crashing waves proved to be more tense.
  3. Adrian’s house (the exterior of it, at least) is a very real house in New South Wales, Australia. The interior of that house is actually a composite of three different houses.
  4. After Cecilia escapes, she meets her sister on a country road in the middle of a forest. Pine trees aren’t native to Australia, so that was filmed on a pine tree plantation south of Sydney. If it weren’t nighttime, you’d see that the trees are all planted in neat, orderly rows.
  5. That set (the pine tree plantation) was also infested with funnel web spiders. But they never told Elisabeth Moss.
  6. “Even if you love a scene, be prepared to sacrifice it if it interrupts the rhythm of a movie.” Repeatedly, Whannell talks about the surprising number of scenes that were cut from the final film.

1. 1. 1. Whannell wanted the camera to have a mind of its own, like it knows more than the characters do. This is why it often moves away from characters and focuses on seemingly nothing.
    2. “Stick to your guns and lean into what’s unique.” On a film, there are usually lots of voices urging the director to make the safe choices. His advice to filmmakers is to stay the course and enhance what makes their project unique.
    3. “If it’s making you nervous, you’re on the right track.”
    4. A promise to “butt chug mai tais” from her sister is the thing that gets Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) out of the house toward the beginning of the film.
    5. The deleted scenes will make you love James (Aldis Hodge) and Sydney (Storm Reid) even more, if that’s even possible.
    6. The sequence where the sheet it pulled off Cecilia and Sydney in bed and Cecilia sees invisible feet holding the sheet to the floor was a pickup filmed in Toronto. They shipped the entire bedroom set to Toronto from Sydney and got the cast back together. This scene also had a different director of photography from the rest of the film.
    7. Whannell refused to use stock footage for the aerial shots of San Francisco. He couldn’t bring himself to use someone else’s footage in his film (and would cringe every time he saw it), so he went up in a helicopter to get those shots.
    8. The scene where Cecilia stabs her arm with a pen in the psychiatric ward was cut from the UK release since they have incredibly strict rules about showing suicide on film. (Without that scene, it seems like there’d be a major plot hole, though.)
    9. The final scene of the film (at Adrian’s house) was actually filmed during the first week of filming. Elisabeth Moss had to conjure all those emotions without the benefit of already filming the rest of the movie.
    10. Whannell confirms, if you were confused, that it was always Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) inside the suit, tormenting Cecilia. The only time his brother Tom (Michael Dorman) wore the suit was when he attacked James and Sydney… and was ultimately shot by Cecilia.
    11. Whannell was an extra on The Matrix Reloaded.
    12. If you look closely, you’ll see an Easter egg for Saw on the wall outside the psychiatric hospital after Cecilia escapes. (Whannell wrote and starred in the original.)