You have your monsters like zombies, vampires, and werewolves and then you have your monsters like Dr. Frankenstein, Ardeth Bay, and Jack Griffin. While we may gripe that Werewolves and certainly Mummies don’t get nearly the representation they are due, they still show up at a higher frequency than we give them credit for either in things like The Monster Squad or their own series like the Brendan Fraser Mummy films or the Underworld flicks. The two classic series monsters that most seem to be forgotten about either with their film output or quality of roles are undoubtedly The Phantom of the Opera and The Invisible Man. While I could talk all day about Phantom of the Mall or Phantom of the Paradise, 2025 marks a 25th anniversary for a bonkers and yet somehow faithful in tone mad scientist that breaks the laws of physics and makes not only his physical appearance, but also moral compass quite invisible. Today we are looking at Hollow Man and seeing if it stands the Test of Time.
The Plot
First a little history. The Invisible Man was written by H.G. Wells in 1897 and, like many of the classic Universal Monsters were, this literary horror story was adapted into a feature film. The Invisible Man movie was released in 1933, directed by James Whale and starring Claude Raines. The series is much longer than most people expect with sequels in 1940 (two of them actually), 1942, 1944, and 1951. These range from quasi political thrillers to Abbott and Costello comedies, and the first sequel even stars Vincent Price. For a well-spoken and well thought out retrospective on that first run be sure to check out Matt Draper’s YouTube video essay and ranking on the series. Great stuff. The idea of the character would later show up in a series of Japanese films as well as smaller parts here and there like in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or in lesser films like John Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man or The Invisible Maniac. 2020 would finally give us a proper return in both title and idea with Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss.
20 years before that, however, we would get Hollow Man from Paul Verhoeven and Sony and while it doesn’t credit the original story or films, this is The Invisible Man through and through. Verhoven wanted to make a much smaller movie after the crazy production and scope of Starship Troopers while also toning down much of the sex and violence of that movie. Hollow Man does have a budget of $95 million but much of that went to pulling off the special effects that are the very crux of what the film is trying to do. Verhoeven had a lot of creative control over the film too, stating that he storyboarded the movie himself and 90% of what we see on screen was exactly how he envisioned it. That may have changed if the studio had its way when they assigned the Academy Award winning William Goldman to do rewrites. Verhoeven allegedly told him no matter what the author wrote, he would disagree with it and so there wasn’t anything really to add.
The two credited screenwriters are Gary Scott Thompson for the story and Andrew Marlowe for the story and screenplay. Thompson wrote the fun sci-fi horror Split Second with Rutger Hauer as well as can be attributed, or blamed depending on how you feel, for starting the Fast and Furious franchise as the writer of the first entry. Andrew Marlowe would go on to create the huge hit TV series Castle starring Nathan Fillion but would also give us the screenplays for Air Force One and End of Days. Verhoeven is of course the sometimes-controversial director who gave us the previously mentioned Starship Troopers but also had a hell of a run from 1987 to 1992 where he unleashed Robocop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct. The BAFTA Award nominated director also has a lengthy career outside the United States.
The cast is a fun one with Elizabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, William Devane, Mary Randle, and Rhona Mitra. The titular Hollow Man is played by Kevin Bacon, but the role almost went to Guy Pearce, Edward Norton, and a rumored Robert Downey Jr. The movie follows Sebastian Caine and his team of scientists as they work on a way to turn soldiers invisible. Turning things invisible is so far doable but turning them back eludes the team. After they are able to successfully return a gorilla to visibility, Sebastian decides to test it on himself. They are able to turn him invisible like the other test subjects but as they struggle to turn him back, he slowly goes insane. He frequently messes with the team in increasingly disturbing ways and even leaves the facility after the team makes him a skin suit to use when he is in the lab.
He sexually assaults his neighbor, kills the military general that is going to close the program, and eventually kills off his own team one by one until just Elizabeth Shue’s Linda, who is Sebastian’s ex-girlfriend, and Josh Brolin’s Matt remain. Matt and Linda are able to eventually kill Sebastian as the lab is destroyed, ending the experiment and movie simultaneously. The movie released to overwhelmingly negative reviews from everything to its excess in all things to even the score by Jerry Goldsmith who had worked with Verhoeven before. Despite these negative reviews on everything except for the special effects, the movie was a huge success taking in 190 million at the box office and premiering at number one when it released on August 4th, 2000.
Sign of the Times
The first indicator of this being in the range of 1997 to 2003 is the cast. I’m not referring to the main 3 of Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Shue, or Josh Brolin either as they have had careers that have spanned decades with roles that you can identify them in nearly any decade. Bacon has Friday the 13th, Tremors, and even recent stuff like MaXXXine while Shue goes back to Adventures in Babysitting, Leaving Las Vegas and a spot in the first season of The Boys. Even Brolin runs the gamut from being a Goonie to inevitable as Thanos and beyond. No, the cast I’m referring to are old timers like William Devane showing up in stuff like this and Payback after an already impressive career including Rolling Thunder, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, and even Rhona Mitra at the start of her career. It’s just a fun get-together that feels like a good combination of stars. The movie also very much feels like a Paul Verhoeven joint with its nudity, violence, and language which feels very international and not cut down due to American sensibilities. Hell, it’s the only movie he didn’t have to make drastic cuts to get an R rating for what its worth but still feels like a movie straight from his ideas. A sign of the Verhoeven if you will.
Other things that feel like a movie directly from the year 2000, not the Conan O’Brien sketch, are the computer and science jargon, the haircuts, the music, and some of the special effects. The computer jargon is one of those things that the layman just took for gospel when it appeared on screen and while it isn’t as egregious as some of the others during this period, it certainly fits the bill of what we thought we would have. The haircuts range from the gloriously frosted tips to Brolin and Shue’s what I would call cut standard ‘dos and it’s a breath of late 90s fresh air. The special effects look decent for the time and some of the ideas, including the infrared goggles, just work for what we had at the time. While Jerry Goldsmith’s score doesn’t reach the highs of Robocop, he clearly adjusted to give us the late 90s era tunes we were accustomed to.
What holds up?
If you are going to have a genius narcissist as your main antagonist, then you better make sure he works, and boy does Kevin Bacon put in the work as Sebastian here. Even before the procedure turns him into a morally bankrupt psychopath, he is very good at just playing a dick. He is undeniably intelligent and driven but he cares not for people’s opinion of him nor what he has to do to be successful to say nothing of what he will do to get what he wants. The special effects also mostly hold up, at least when they use them right. All the ways they try to track his movements from the previously mentioned goggles to the fire extinguishers and blood pools on the ground all work in different ways and show the intelligence of the characters… until they don’t, but more on that later. When the characters are turning invisible or already are all stand out as good looking even 25 years later and things like burning him also work out and are done better than most special effects done in the era which has to be attributed to the team behind it including one of the masters, Phil Tippett.
Some of the humor is genuinely funny and that has to go to the cast even more than the screenwriters’ efforts here. The cast all perfectly play their parts and succeed in delivering what we are supposed to be even when their characters are written as almost stock characters. In this rewatch I found myself being even more bummed when some of them died and feeling paranoid and violated right along side of them. At its core, Hollow Man is also a very good take on the Invisible Man mythos. A lot of people don’t get how many people Jack Griffin kills or how crazy he goes and this movie, while on a smaller scale, does the source material justice while also being a better quasi remake than a lot of the attempts after the mid 90s. It’s certainly better than most Frankenstein offerings or Dracula tales and it puts Tom Cruise’s Mummy to shame. While it is justifiably listed as a science fiction movie, the horror and gore ramp up considerably when it decides to be a full slasher.
What doesn’t Hold Up?
For all the praise I heaped on the effects earlier, some of it does look a little cheap or at the very least out of date. Isabelle the gorilla turning back into a gorilla comes to mind and then some things like the skin suit being poured onto Kevin Bacon’s head don’t make sense if you look at it or think about it too long. Some of the scripting also falls flat and even though the cast is able to mostly elevate the source material, there are intelligence gaps when characters need to die and some of the humor is just vulgar and doesn’t land. The dog death probably wouldn’t happen if the movie was made today even if it does villainize Sebastian more and most of the characters end up just being rough outlines without any real growth. While that’s not a huge sin, especially in a one-off horror movie, it still adds to the forgettable nature. The last two things that don’t really hold up are the length of the movie and honestly how pervy it is. The length is just a matter of cutting a few scenes here and there without losing the overall feel but the amount of perv in the movie is uncomfortable. While Verhoeven is known for excess and sexuality and has gone on record for the movie as saying it’s a test for the audience in how long they are willing to follow Sebastian it can be a bit much at times. The rape of his neighbor and the fondling of his coworker are uncomfortable in ways that make you feel bad for watching at times. Even when accepting it’s a horror movie from a more open-minded director, it’s still a hard watch in certain scenes in 2025.
Verdict
While its not as good as the 2020 reimagining that fully credits the source material, Hollow Man is a shockingly good time that hits more than it misses. While it can be needlessly mean and pervy at times, it is a great representation of a director with a vision and a cast firing on all cylinders can do. There was a sequel 6 years later starring Christian Slater that can remain invisible but this sci-fi horror is anything but hollow and stands the Test of Time.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Arrow in the Head
