BEST known for his role in the creation of cinema’s Saw franchise, Leigh Whannell now turns his attention to another favourite in the horror canon: H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man.

Famously first adapted for screen in the Universal film of 1933, Wells’ 1897 novel concerned the attempts of a scientist - Griffin - to achieve invisibility by shifting his body’s refractive index to that of air, so that it neither absorbs nor reflects life. His partial success leads to a succession of sour consequences.

Whannell’s interpretation has been a long time coming. Initially touted for production as far back as 2007, The Invisible Man was relaunched in 2016 as one in Universal’s serialised Dark Universe. The failure of Tom Cruise vehicle The Mummy to launch this in style at the 2017 box office saw initial plans revised however. This Invisible Man exists still within said Dark Universe but don’t expect overlaps with planned Jekyll and Hyde or Bride of Frankenstein offerings. Wisely, the focus has returned to isolated storytelling.

Elisabeth Moss heads up a marginally more muted cast ensemble that was once planned - Johnny Depp was soon dropped - playing Celia Kass, the emotionally and physically abused wife of Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s Griffin. The film opens to Celia’s flight from her tormentor in the middle of a dark and eerie night. When, soon after, Griffin is pronounced dead by suicide, Celia must come to terms with a relationship that is not quite finished with her yet. But who will believe that she is being stalked by a predator that no one can actually see?

Harriet Dyer and Aldis Hodge co-star in the film, as Celia’s wife and childhood friend respectively, with A Wrinkle in Time’s Storm Reid rounding off the quartet as the latter’s daughter.

In a #MeToo society, Whannell’s Invisible Man carries obvious connotations to a society in which a woman’s independence and power can be threatened by unseen patriarchal forces. Pulsating tensions exude from the screen as Celia’s predicament spirals beyond control.You can forget invisibility, this one was made to be seen.

One more for this week, Downhill is Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s aptly titled remake of Swedish comic drama Force Majeure.Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus lead as a married couple forced to reconsider their relationship after a near-death experience. If only the directors had reconsidered making it.