Vincent Price, Nan Grey, Cedric Hardwicke

After being wrongly convicted of killing his brother, Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) faces a death sentence. But Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton), whose brother invented an invisibility potion, hel...( read more  read more... )ps Radcliffe flee prison by injecting him with the serum. Unfortunately, the serum has a nasty side effect: it slowly but surely leads to insanity. So while Radcliffe is now free to find the real killer, he also is in a race against time -- unless Dr. Griffin can invent an antidote before it's too late.

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1,645 ratings

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Directed by: Joe May

Release Date: January 12, 1940

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DVD Release Date: March 15, 2005

Stats: 73 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (73)


  • November 14, 2009
    Vincent Price takes over for Rains as the lead, and in the end, I liked this story a bit better than the original. I agree with what someone else here on Flixster said about this movie being more of a film-noir style mystery than a horror picture.

    Sutton plays the original invi...( read more)sible man's brother, Dr. Frank Griffin. He understands the danger of the drug since it made his brother go mad, but he gives it to his friend Radcliffe who needs to escape his death sentence. Radcliffe has a better relationship with his fiance and he is well liked by the factory workers who work for him at his mining operation. He's basically a good guy, not a monster, not a villain. True, he does begin to go mad with power, while Dr. Griffin rushes against the clock to find an antidote that will make him visible again. But, Radcliffe uses the madness, the urge to seek revenge, to find who framed him for murder. I like that it doesn't play like a comedy, that it takes itself more seriously, that the invisible man is doing some good by seeking justice.

    This was made almost seven years later and there are some improvements to the effects. Except I have to make one exception. The wires are visible more often on the props, but this may just be because Universal didn't spend as much time remastering or improving these sequels as the original. I don't know. Still the props are used realistically. And Vincent Price's voice is just as expressive or maybe more so in acting when you can't see him. Oh, and Curt Siodmak contributed to the script on this one.
  • March 21, 2009
    never reaches the heights of whale's film and vincent price is too hammy
  • February 27, 2007
    Nowhere near as dark and moody as the first one, but still plenty of fun. Interesting to see (or . . . not see, I guess . . .) Vincent Price in such an early role.
  • July 9, 2008
    Good combination of Universal monster movie and early Noir.
  • November 2, 2009
    A direct sequel to the original. But not nearly as good as the effects of the substance which turn people mad was not played up enough. The brother of the original Invisible Man is wrongly charged with his murder. Right before he is to be hanged he disappears thanks to some of th...( read more)e formula smuggled to him. The rest of the movie is him trying to uncover the real murder with the police chasing him. The special effects werent as special, the dark aspects werent as dark and the comedic aspects werent as funny.
  • October 29, 2009
    How would they know?
  • December 29, 2008
    I liked the first movie of the Invisible man and this was good as well. Great special effects for it's time. Great black and white Sci-fi film. Still holds up with time.
  • October 31, 2008
    vincent price takes over the role as the invisible man with great results
  • July 31, 2008
    The effects were basically the only thing saving this movie. It was actually quite boring with an okay plot. It was very neat to see Vincent Price in one of his earliest roles.
  • December 23, 2007
    More of a mystery than a horror movie, the idea for this was pretty decent. But what made the first movie great was the mood and atmosphere. Vincent Price does do a decent job as you could hear him slowly turning mad while invisible, but as for the rest, I really didn't care fo...( read more)r it all that much.

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The Invisible Man Returns Trivia


  • 1940. This was Vincent's very first horror film with him in the lead role. It was a sequel to the 1933 original that starred Claude Rains.   Answer »
  • 1940. This was Vincent's very first horror film with him in the lead role. It was a sequel to the 1933 original that starred Claude Rains.   Answer »
  • 1940. This was Vincent's very first horror film with him in the lead role. It was a sequel to the 1933 original that starred Claude Rains.   Answer »
  • 'The Invisible Man Returns' is a Vincent Price movie.  Answer »

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