The acclaimed new horror-thriller The Invisible Man brings the classic Universal Monster back to his scary roots, making a lot of changes to the original story but focusing on the pure, primal terror of being stalked by an invisible madman. Unlike the last Universal Monsters reboot, The Mummy, Leigh Whannell’s film isn’t an obvious set-up for a giant movie franchise, but that doesn’t mean it closes the book on the characters and their world.
Bloody-Disgusting talked to writer/director Whannell in a new interview, and got him talking about the ending of The Invisible Man and what it means for the characters who survive the film’s shocking climax.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
At the end of The Invisible Man, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) turns the tables on her stalker, using his own invisibility suit to kill him and make it look like a suicide. As the movie concludes, Cecilia walks away from the crime scene, with the high-tech suit still in her possession, having finally reclaimed control over her life.
Bloody-Disgusting asked Whannell if the ending is setting up a sequel with Moss in the lead role, now invisible, and whether the film’s morally complex ending means she’ll be the hero or the villain the next time around.
“I don’t know,” Leigh Whannell admits. “Because I never think about a story beyond the borders of the story. Like, I never think, okay, what does she do after that final scene? It’s almost like when a story ends, it ends.”
“So in my mind there’s a cathartic moment for Elisabeth Moss’s character but I’m not sure what she does yet,” Whannell explains.
But although Cecilia’s future is still unwritten, Whannell says the ending of The Invisible Man is “certainly” a new beginning for her character. But he’s pretty sure she’s not going to go on a killing spree anytime soon.
“I think [her actions are] probably not a pattern. [She’s] probably just getting rid of this one problem. It’s like a tumor that she’s cut out of her life,” Whannell says.
But the fact that Whannell doesn’t have firm plans for the follow-up, and is leaving the door open with “probablies,” means that the future of The Invisible Man – and the Universal Horror monsters – is still unwritten. And now that the film was a massive hit at the box office, well, let’s just say that financial successes often beget sequels in the world of Hollywood.
What would YOU want to see in a sequel to The Invisible Man?