It wouldn’t be a proper 31 Days of Horror unless I watched at least one classic Universal Horror picture. I have a lovely boxed-set collection of most of the classic Universal Monster movies so I like to whip it out periodically through spooky season.

Over the last few years I’ve made my way through most of these films, and the many sequels, but I’d only ever watched the original The Invisible Man. So I was excited to start working on its sequels.

The Invisible Man Returns takes place sometime after the original film. Since the main character (spoiler!) died in that film they couldn’t bring him back (or Claude Rains who played him) so they have to make do with his brother Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton) but he isn’t really our main character. That would be Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price – who spends almost the entire film wrapped up in bandages or invisible) a man sentenced to hang for a crime he didn’t commit.

Naturally, Dr. Griffin sneaks in some good old invisibility liquid into the prison and helps Geoffrey escape. The catch, of course, is that there is no cure for the invisibility potion once you’ve taken it. And sooner than later it will turn you into a crazy, murderous nutter. Griffin works tirelessly on making the antidote while Geoffrey gets into various invisible misadventures.

With an 80-minute runtime, The Invisible Man Returns moves at a pretty fast clip. There isn’t much to it, really, and the story never goes anywhere particularly interesting. But the special effects are terrific. So many times I kept looking at what they were doing and wondered how in the world they pulled it off in 1940.

It is worth watching just for that.