The Invisible Man: Read and Watch

The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance

A man named Griffin arrives at an inn owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hall of the English village of Iping, West Sussex, during a snowstorm. He wears a wide-brimmed hat, an overcoat and gloves; his face is hidden entirely by bandages except for a prosthetic nose. He is reclusive, irascible, aggressive, and introverted. He demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his rooms working with chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. He causes a lot of accidents, but when Mrs. Hall addresses this, Griffin demands that the cost of the damage be put on his bill. While he is staying at the inn, hundreds of glass bottles arrive. His odd behaviour becomes the talk of the village, with many theorizing as to his origins.

Meanwhile, a burglary occurs in the village, but no suspect is found. Running short of money, Griffin is unable to pay for his lodging and meals. When his landlady threatens to kick him out, he reveals his invisibility to her in a fit of anger. An attempt to apprehend him by the police is thwarted when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility, fights off his would-be captors, and flees.

At the South Downs, Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, to become his assistant. With Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain records of his experiments. Marvel attempts to betray Griffin, who threatens to kill him. Marvel escapes to the seaside town of Port Burdock, pursued to an inn by Griffin, who is shot by one of the bar patrons.

Griffin takes shelter in a nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, a former acquaintance from medical school. To Kemp, he reveals his true identity: an albino former medical student who left medicine to devote himself to the science of optics.

Griffin tells the story of how he invented chemicals capable of rendering bodies invisible, which he first tried on a cat, then himself, how he burned down the boarding house he was staying in to cover his tracks, found himself ill-equipped to survive in the open, stole clothes from a theatrical supply shop on Drury Lane, and then headed to Iping to attempt to reverse the invisibility. Having been driven insane by the procedure and his experiences, Griffin now imagines that he can make Kemp his secret confederate, describing a plan to use his invisibility to terrorise the nation.

Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities, led by Port Burdock's chief of police, Colonel Adye, and waits for help to arrive while listening to this wild proposal. When Adye and his men arrive, Griffin fights his way out and the next day leaves a note announcing that Kemp will be the first man to be killed in the "Reign of Terror". Kemp tries to organise a plan to use himself as bait to trap the invisible man, but a note that he sends is stolen from his servant by Griffin. During the chase, Griffin arms himself with an iron bar and kills a bystander.

Griffin shoots Adye, then breaks into Kemp's house. Adye's constables fend him off and Kemp bolts for the town, where the locals come to his aid. Still obsessed with killing Kemp, Griffin nearly strangles him but is cornered, seized, and beaten by the enraged mob, his last words a cry for mercy. Kemp urges the mob to stand away and tries to save Griffin's life, though unsuccessfully. Griffin's battered body becomes visible as he dies. A policeman has someone cover Griffin's face with a sheet.

It is later revealed that Marvel has secretly kept Griffin's notes and, with the help of the stolen money, becomes a successful businessman, running the "Invisible Man Inn". However, when not running his inn, Marvel tries to decipher the notes, in the hope of one day recreating Griffin's work. However, because pages were accidentally washed clean, the remaining notes are coded in Greek and Latin, and Marvel has no comprehension of even the basic mathematical symbols he sees in the notes, this is unlikely.

The Invisible Man

Cecilia Kass is trapped in an abusive relationship with wealthy optics engineer and businessman Adrian Griffin, the founder and CEO of the human–computer augmentation company Cobalt. One night, she drugs Adrian with her diazepam and escapes his highly secured house; Adrian is awoken by a car alarm and nearly catches her, but she gets away with the help of her younger sister Emily.

Cecilia hides out with her childhood friend, San Francisco Police detective James Lanier, and his teenage daughter, Sydney. Two weeks after Cecilia's escape, news breaks that Adrian has committed suicide. His lawyer/younger brother Tom Griffin contacts Cecilia to inform her that Adrian left her $5 million in his will.

As time goes on, Cecilia suspects that there is another presence in the house after several strange events, but James assures her she is just traumatized and paranoid. During a job interview, she finds her work portfolio contents removed and then faints. The doctor tells her that high levels of diazepam were found in her system. In her bathroom, she finds the same bloodied diazepam bottle with which she drugged Adrian.

Cecilia, accompanied by James, meets with Tom again. She believes that Adrian faked his death and used his optics expertise to become invisible in order to torment her, but Tom rebuffs the idea and pleads with her to not let Adrian posthumously win, revealing that he too was a victim of Adrian's manipulations and is glad his brother is dead. Later, Emily receives a fake insulting email from Cecilia's account. Afterwards, an unseen force hits Sydney, who assumes it was Cecilia, causing James to ask her to leave. While alone at the house, Cecilia tries to catch the figure she believes hit Sydney. She finds Adrian's phone in the attic, on which she immediately receives a text saying "surprise". Cecilia dumps paint down the attic trap door, coating an invisible figure. A violent struggle ensues, but Cecilia escapes.

Determined to find answers, Cecilia goes to Adrian's home to investigate his lab, where she finds an additional invisible bodysuit, confirming her suspicions. Right after she hides the suit in their former bedroom's closet, the invisible figure attacks again, so she flees and contacts Emily. The pair meet at a restaurant, where the invisible figure slits Emily's throat and places the knife in Cecilia's hand, framing her for murder.

While awaiting trial, Cecilia is remanded to a psychiatric hospital, and at night hears a voice exclaim "Surprise". Later, she learns she is pregnant. Tom offers to get Cecilia's charges dropped if she agrees to "go back to him (Adrian)" and raise the child, implying that Tom helped stage his brother's suicide. He reveals that Adrian tampered with her birth control to impregnate her. Cecilia refuses the offer and steals a fountain pen from him. That night, she attempts suicide to lure out the invisible figure. When the figure tries to stop her, she stabs him with the pen, causing the suit to malfunction.

The security team arrives, but the figure incapacitates them before fleeing the hospital with Cecilia in pursuit. To protect her unborn child, the figure threatens to attack those she loves. Cecilia races to James's house and finds the figure attacking him and Sydney. She shoots the figure dead but finds Tom in the suit. Police storm Adrian's house and find him alive, tied up and claiming that Tom held him prisoner. They conclude that Tom killed Emily as well, but Cecilia believes that Adrian set his brother up as the scapegoat for his crimes.

To get Adrian's confession, a now exonerated Cecilia meets him at his house for dinner wearing a wire, while James listens in from a few blocks away. She agrees to mend their relationship if he confesses to killing Emily. Adrian insists that Tom was responsible but claims that the experience changed his outlook on life and how he treated her. After Adrian says the word "surprise", hinting that he actually was the invisible man, Cecilia excuses herself to the bathroom. However, she equips his invisible suit that she previously hid and slits his throat, with the nearby security camera making it seem as if he committed suicide. After calling 911, she whispers "surprise" to Adrian, and he collapses dead.

When James arrives, Cecilia confirms to him what the camera captured. He notices that she is carrying the extra suit but agrees to keep silent and allows her to leave.