It is a new year and in keeping with the trend of the last few years, 2020 is chock full of exciting new horror movies. Next month sees the release of a new modern version of The Invisible Man from director Leigh Whannell and starring Elisabeth Moss. And while we’ll have to wait until February to see The Invisible Man (or not see him, because you know, he’s invisible), we now know that the film will be rated R. Here’s why.
Rated R for some strong bloody violence, and language.
Neither audiences nor Elisabeth Moss’s character Cecilia may be able to see the Invisible Man, but what we will surely be seeing in this movie is some serious violence. This explanation for The Invisible Man’s R rating comes from the Classification and Ratings Administration’s Filmratings.com site and it indicates that Leigh Whannell’s film will not be for the faint of heart or those easily offended by foul language.
The Invisible Man will have strong bloody violence, which makes total sense if you’ve seen the trailer for the movie. The trailer shows that the Invisible Man, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, will be shedding some serious blood in his efforts to torment his ex. In one particularly gruesome shot in the trailer, we see an invisible entity force a police officer to use his gun and shoot out his own knee. It’s brutal stuff and plenty of blood spurts out.
I imagine that was just a sample of what The Invisible Man has in store for horror audiences and while I don’t know if the film will be a full-on gorefest, based on the rating, some of the violence will be particularly bloody. Also, Elisabeth Moss’s charcter is being hunted and haunted by an invisible man while everyone around her questions her sanity. Who among us wouldn’t drop at least a few F-bombs in that situation?
When we first heard last January that Universal Pictures was making an Invisible Man movie with Upgrade director Leigh Whannell at the helm, there were a couple of other interesting details reported. Following the stillborn Dark Universe, Universal was adopting a new strategy. Future monster movies would be rooted in horror and wouldn’t necessarily be connected to any sort of shared universe. Furthermore, the films would have no restriction in terms of tone or rating.
As the first Universal monster movie out of the gate under this new plan, The Invisible Man and writer-director Leigh Whannell are clearly taking advantage of the freedom it affords. It is certainly true that there are great PG-13 horror movies and a film doesn’t have to have an R rating to be scary, it is encouraging that Leigh Whannell seemingly wasn’t bound by rating and got to make the movie he wanted to make.
The Invisible Man opens in theaters on February 28. Check out our 2020 Release Schedule to keep track of all this year’s biggest movies and stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest movie news.
