Review of The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) by Byron B — 03 Aug 2009

Finally, one invisible man sequel that is a legit suspenseful horror pic. Very early on I was fooled into thinking that Jon Hall was portraying the same character from the Invisible Agent who a couple years later is now seeing the effects of madness consume him. If only, there was some consistency between any of the sequels. But no! This time he plays Robert Griffin who evidently doesn't have any family relation to the Griffins of the earlier movies. I liked that Hall gets to play a darker character after being so sanitized and clean cut in the previous one. Five or so years ago he used to be a world traveling treasure hunter with his friends Irene (Sondergaard) and Jasper (Matthews). On one adventure he was knocked unconscious in a possible accident or a possible murder attempt. He doesn't remember where he's been for several years except that he was struck by something again recently and suddenly recalled the treasure that was supposed to be half his all those years ago. Oh, and plus he's already a homicidal maniac who has escaped from a mental hospital to come to England and settle this score before he's ever introduced to the invisibility procedure. Irene and Jasper determine to keep Robert from taking their fortune and their daughter Julie. Robert is obsessed with Julie, but she thinks he's long dead and is dating a journalist named Foster. Robert eventually finds himself on the doorstep of Dr. Drury (Carradine). Dr. Drury has turned several animals invisible and sees Robert as his chance to test his formula on a human. Robert runs off to force Jasper to sign over his fortune with his knew found power, but then to get Julie he realizes he needs to be visible again. Dr. Drury then quite quickly seems to have found a blood transfusion method of making the invisible visible again. Like in the book this invisible man adopts a slightly goofy cockney assistant (Errol) who provides some humor without being over the top. Well the blood transfusion is only temporary and Robert wants to have control over when he turns invisible or visible and he has a life threatening way to do this. The invisible man is definitely a monster again here and he is a real danger.

The bandages are back for a head covering, but when he is invisible you can see an outline of where he is more often than before. And you can see the whites of his eyes in a couple effects mistakes. Still there are yet more improvements in the effects mainly with Robert fading in and out of visibility while moving.