Editorials
The Invisible Man for a New Generation: Revisiting Paul Verhoeven’s ‘Hollow Man’
H.G. Wells‘ 1897 novel The Invisible Man revolved around Griffin, a scientist who uses himself as a test subject for his experimental serum, rendering himself invisible. He’s unable to reverse the process, though, and he subsequently spirals out of control, resulting in multiple murders. Both the novel and Griffin have inspired countless adaptations since, including Universal Picture’s 1933 classic. Nearly twenty years ago, Hollow Man drew from the original story to create something much more modern and mean-spirited; this big-budget sci-fi spectacle delivered a sleazy central character and one seriously violent finale.
The eponymous Hollow Man is Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon), an arrogant scientist working on an invisibility serum for the Pentagon. Up until the precise moment Caine volunteers himself as the first human test subject, an unethical and illegal move, the film spends some time introducing his God complex. He’s addicted to attention and power, loves materialism, adores defying authority, and he views women as mere objects to be used and discarded. He’s particularly persistent in his attempts to win back his ex, Linda (Elisabeth Shue), not only because they work together, but because he views the pursuit as a challenge. In other words, the “hollow” in the title refers to Caine as a person, long before he’s rendered himself invisible.
That the opening scene shows a mouse horrifically ripped apart by an enraged and invisible gorilla driven mad by the serum sets up two crucial points; the serum affects aggression levels, and this version of the story will end violently. When Caine first undergoes the procedure, he quickly adjusts to life undetected by playing pranks on his colleagues and inappropriately touching the women. When the reverse method fails, he grows increasingly stir crazy.
Eventually, Caine finds ways to sneak off, growing more brazen by his invisibility the longer he’s unable to return to form. That includes the horrific rape of a neighbor he lusted after from afar, and a brutal bludgeoning of an animal test subject. It’s when his colleagues finally realize they need to alert their military employers of Caine’s status that he decides to cut ties and destroy any evidence of his tests, which means destroying both the lab and those in it. Cue the violent slasher-like third act.
Director Paul Verhoeven was aiming for something much more accessible and commercially appealing in his follow up to Starship Troopers. Instead, he wound up helming a feature he’s publicly disowned over the years. In a 2016 interview with Hollywood Reporter, he said, “I can defend Showgirls, but not Hollow Man.” His experience working on Hollow Man also marked the last Hollywood film that the director made. It’s the least Verhoeven feeling Verhoeven film of his filmography and one that feels superficial on a narrative level. Yet it’s very slickly produced with some smart ways of making invisibility visually exciting. So much that Hollow Man earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Penned by End of Days screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe, the biggest flaw of the narrative is the love triangle between Caine, Linda, and Matt (Josh Brolin). Matt is Caine’s perfect opposite, the more grounded and morally pure scientist to balance out Caine’s impulsivity and ego. Linda tells Matt that the concept of Caine is more attractive than the actual person, but there’s still residual attraction leftover. Though on a much smaller scale, Linda’s ambition and loyalty to Caine make her just as much to blame for his villainous turn as he is, his propensity for evil was there from the outset, but she enabled him. Worst of all, though, is that Linda and Matt – as they all are- are paper-thin characters. The actors bring enough energy and talent to propel the chaos forward, but it’s hard to develop a rooting interest for any of them.
Caine and The Invisible Man’s Griffin ultimately share the same arch, but Griffin’s feels more unhinged, tragic, and grander. The confined lab space and Caine’s motivations reduce him to a super-powered rapist and cruel animal killer that can’t let go of office grudges. That’s an oversimplification, but it does feel like a significant wasted opportunity to not bother with scares or tension until the final act. The idea of a menacing maniac lurking nearby, unseen, should feel a lot more dangerous than it does in the Hollow Man.
Bacon fully commits to his vile character, and despite Verhoeven’s vocal disappointment of his film, it does present a uniquely modern take on a classic literary monster. One with a rare blockbuster budget, no less. Slick production values and a fantastically bloody finale make for a fascinating entry in 2000’s horror catalog and a more modern depiction of the corruptive nature of power along with it. Above all, it shows that there’s still plenty of room to explore new horror-fueled takes on The Invisible Man.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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