Wells published his novel in 1897 and the concept has fascinated us ever since. It has been adapted both directly and in concept several times, most notably in 1933 by director James Whale with Claude Rains voicing the titular part. (That itself is amusing. We mostly know Rains for his elegant style and distinguished voice, but his accent was an act. In home life he spoke with a cockney accent so thick people often failed to understand him.)

Most people know the plot. A scientist invents a serum that makes himself invisible, however the serum has an adverse event that also make the user insane. Power and paranoia drive the protagonist to his doom.

This however is a distortion of Wells’ original vision. The scientist, Griffin, is brilliant and does create the invisibility concoction, however he is, before the experiment, already vain, and amoral. Invisibility releases him from the consequences of his actions and frees the monster that always dwelt within him. Wells is making a damning statement on human nature with his story, one that most filmmakers omit just as they omit the sacrilegious subtext to The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Surprisingly in the horrid movie Hollow Man, a blatant adaptation of the story, the scientist is presented as an amoral man and so the theme of the movie is much closer to Well’s vision than the classic film. However Hollow Man is such a wretched movie that I could not recommend it at all.