On a snowy night, a stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark goggles, takes a room at The Lion's Head Inn in the English village of Iping in Sussex. The man demands to be left alone. Later, the innkeeper is sent by his wife to evict the stranger after he has made a huge mess in his room while doing research and has fallen behind on his rent. Angered, the stranger throws the innkeeper down the stairs. Confronted by a policeman and some local civilians, he removes his bandages and goggles, revealing he is invisible. Laughing maniacally, he takes off his clothes, making himself completely undetectable, and drives off his tormentors before fleeing into the countryside. A chemist who discovered the secret of invisibility through an obscure drug called monocaine, Dr. Jack Griffin's insane and deadly game of cat and mouse with those around him ensues as he wreaks havoc on a small English village, leaving death in his invisible wake.