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Welcome, Popversians, to another edition of The Coldest Open, the column where I, your humble horror host, examine the history of scary cinema through the first moments of its standout entries. In tonight's edition, we're celebrating a horror anniversary - albeit a fairly recent one. Please join me, won't you, in wishing a very happy five years to Leigh Whannell's 2020 remake of The Invisible Man.

The way Coldest Open works is this: I'm going to be breaking down five different hallmarks of every great cold open in horror, then judging whether the movie in question pulls them off. If so, that hallmark will get ranked with a "Cold" verdict; if not, it'll get ranked with a "warm." At the end, we'll tally up those verdicts and determine a temperature, ranging all the way from Lukewarm to Absolute Zero.

Make sense? Excellent. Then go ahead and check the shadowiest corners of your room (with your hands - remember sight isn't everything) and let's dive in.

The Invisible Man's Cold-Blooded Killer

Though the titular monster of this film has been the primary focus of every Invisible Man adaptation (and the original novel), he's really not the selling point of this movie (we'll get to her in just a moment). Still, Whannell does a great job using precious few seconds to convey exactly who this killer is. The very first thing we see of Adrian Griffin (played by Oliver-Jackson Cohen) is his sleeping hand resting on his girlfriend, exuding an obsession with power over other people right from the jump. Then, as we stick with that girlfriend as she escapes his (literal) clutches, we get more details of what kind of power-hungry obsessive he is.

The opening moments of the Invisible Man feel kind of like a heist - the suspense is centered on the possibility of someone being caught. But even as director Leigh Whannell so brilliantly builds that suspense, he's also telling us about who we're running from. The house that Griffin owns is stuffed to the gills with high-tech security - cameras we see aren't just for protection, but convey a voyeuristic perversion with his partner. Later, we'll also come to learn that Griffin is a scientist - we spend time in his lab learning that he's not only a physically dangerous person, but a brilliant psychopath as well.

Of course, all of this information is conveyed as we're actually tracking with the titular villain's partner, the real hero (and the real innovation) of this movie, that's adapting a century-old horror storyline. So now that we've applauded Whannell for his work on the monster, let's talk about the real star of the show.

Verdict: Cold

The Invisible Man's First Person to Get Iced

I'm going to tweak how we do things in this category for this particular installment, and if you'll go with me on this, you'll see I'm justified. Usually, I use this section to talk about the first person who dies in a horror movie, but in the opening moments of The Invisible Man, we don't actually see anyone die. Instead, we meet Cee (played by Elizabeth Moss), our story's hero and the main focus of all of its horrors. So rather than focus on the first death, I'd rather talk about the longest-suffering victim of the film. Why?

Because she's the best final girl of this decade.

Immediately upon meeting Cecilia Kass, we know that she is smart, resourceful, and resilient in the face of what is clearly a prison-like relationship with Griffin. She smartly goes about the house, disassembling the billionaire's high tech security that has kept her entrapped. But then, just as she is about to have her hard-won victory, we find out that not only does Cee have an incredible brain, but a giant heart.

Right before she crosses the final threshold to freedom, Cee bumps into Zeus, the house's dog. Zeus himself is a (likely abused) prisoner of Griffin's hosuehold, and though at first Cee is tempted to leave him behind, she relents, spending precious seconds of her meticulous escape plan to remove his electric collar. And horrifically, this causes the biggest hitch in her plan yet, as Zeus accidentally bumps into a parked car, setting off an alarm and waking Griffin.

But we'll talk about that in a moment. For now, watching Cee brilliant escape Griffin's clutches is enough to make us root for her, but seeing her risk even more to free poor Zeus? That makes us love her.

Verdict: Cold

The Invisible Man's Polar Plot Intro

There's so much that Whannell includes to paint a picture of this movie's plot without the use of any dialogue. the aforementioned moment in the garage, in fact, shows us that, despite being a horrible psycho, Griffin is still financially successful, the type of person that, unfortunately, could very much exist in real life. But I want to specifically point out a moment before that, a moment in which, without a spoken word, Whannell explains everything you need to know about his take on the science fiction classic.

As Cee goes room to room turning off all the security tech she needs to in order to escape, she pauses for a second in what appears to be Griffin's lab. Behind her, there are a couple of rubbery suits on mannequins, lined up against the wall in a group. Then, just before she leaves, she notices the same kind of set-up, but with an apparently empty place where the suit should be. Of course, we'll later come to find out that that place isn't empty at all.

So not only have we met the film's titular villain, we know how he's come to be. 

Verdict: Cold

The Invisible Man's Frozen Snapshots

As brilliant and expositional as it is, that "suit/no suit" shot we just talked about isn't even the most impactful image we get in this opener (the irony of this being a horror movie about what you can't see isn't lost on me here, by the way). That moment comes a little while later, after we've both been introduced to the terror of Adrian Griffin and met poor Zeus in the moment that makes us fall in love with Cee. As she escapes, alarms blaring behind her, we see something so very simple but so very devestating that we actually wonder if she'll make it out of this opener.

Behind her, lights go on in Griffin's bedroom.

Now look, I've always been a fan of really scary monster visuals. I love some screwed up, demonic faces on folks like Freddy Kreuger, Pumpkinhead, and more. A great gore effect is a big thumbs up for me too. So when you can send chills down my spine with the flip of a lightswitch? I simply have to stand up and applaud.

Verdict: Cold

The Invisible Man's Bone-Chilling Music

We've talked in the Coldest Open before about the fact that silence can be just as useful as sound when giving us a creepy, tense opening in a horror movie, and the pin-drop quiet of The Invisible Man's opening moments are a great example of that. Hell, I'd argue the filmmakers were even turning the volume down a notch to convey the severity of Cee's escape - did you notice how when she was ruffling through her duffel bag, we couldn't hear the shift of her many papers?

It might not be 100% accurate to the physical reality of the scene, but as with all good art, the emotion is much more important here anyway.

Verdict: Cold

The Invisible Man's Cold Open Temperature: Absolute Zero

As a massive fan of the original Invisible Man movies (and a devotee of the original H.G. Wells novel), I went into the 2020 remake of one of what I view to be the best classic horror films with high, high expectations. And I was thrilled to walk out of the theater telling everyone I knew that those expectations had been met. From the opening moments, the Invisible Man crew of Leigh Whannell, Elizabeth Moss, and Oliver-Jackson Cohen present us with a hero, a villain, and a well of emotional material the likes of which one has to see to believe.

Er, you know what I mean.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.