PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Hollow Man, a twist on H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel and the 1933 film, The Invisible Man, was released on August 4, 2000. On that day, the world was once again captivated by Kevin Bacon, this time as the scientist, Sebastian Caine.
“It’s amazing what you can do… when you don’t have to look at yourself in the mirror any more.”
Directed by Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop 1987), Hollow Man follows Scientist Sebastian Cain (Kevin Bacon: Friday the 13th 1980—read our retro review here), and his colleges, Linda (Elisabeth Shue: Adventures In Babysitting 1987), Matt (Josh Brolin: The Goonies 1985), Sarah (Kim Dickens: Gone Girl 2014), Carter (Greg Grunberg: Alias TV series), Frank (Joey Slotnick: Boston Public TV series), and Janice (Mary Randle: Phone Booth 2002), after they test Cain with a serum he created to turn himself invisible. Cain slowly unravels and turns against them with horrific consequences.
How much do you know about Hollow Man? Read our Top 10 Fun Facts list to find out!
Top 10 Facts you might not know about Hollow Man
1) An anatomically correct, working computer model was created of Kevin Bacon’s entire body, right down to the last capillary. This 3-D model has since been donated to scientific researchers.
2) Jennifer Lopez (Anaconda 1997) was offered the role of Linda McKay. The role went to Elisabeth Shue.
3) This is The Baconator’s—wow, I can’t believe I just said that—his is Kevin Bacon’s fifth horror film. His first four horror projects are Friday The 13th (1980), Tremors (1990—read our retro review here), Flatliners (1990—read our retro review here), and Stir Of Echoes (1999—read our retro review here) respectively.
4) Caine tells a well-known joke about Superman and Wonder Woman, with the Invisible Man caught in the middle punchline. No one laughs. It acts as foreshadowing of the degradation of Caine’s character.
5) Robert Downey Jr. was considered for the role of Matthew Kensington. However, the part went to Josh Brolin.
6) This is the second film where Kevin Bacon is shown nude. The first film is Wild Things (1998).
7) To get the right reaction from the cast, Director Paul Verhoeven had speakers put in different places on the set and had Kevin Bacon’s voice come from different speakers so they would genuinely react to the invisible character moving around. For the scene with the invisible gorilla, Verhoeven screamed to the microphone, imitating gorilla noises.
8) Despite assumptions that Bacon would not be needed on set except when his character Sebastian is visible, Verhoeven and the crew realized after test footage was shot that he would need to be present to interact with the cast, as “the other actors were stranded in empty space, and the scenes looked stiff, inorganic, and unconvincing” without him.
9) In order to use the title, producers bought the rights to Dan Simmons’ book, Hollow Man, even though the novel has nothing to do with invisible men.
10) Twenty years after the release of this film, The Invisible Man (2020—read our review here) was released. Both films are mostly based on H.G. Wells’ story, The Invisible Man.
Thanks so much for reading, everyone! Now go watch Hollow Man or scary green suit Kevin Bacon will get you!
