The marketing campaign that was launched for The Invisible right before it came out in theaters was one that made the film look as if it was going to be the next great ghost film. The trailer for the movie was perfect and it gave off the feel of a film like Ghost but had the suspense of The Sixth Sense. My wife who normally does not watch horror film even turned to me and said that the trailer for this film looked good. However the overall interpretation of the trailer did not reflect the what the film’s true plot was about.
If your looking at The Invisible and thinking that it might be film that’s similar to that of Ghost, your right to a certain extent. One can almost consider it the teenage version of Ghost. However while the concept does seem similar to the likes, it is actually a very different story. I’m going to try to explain the plot without giving the story away, but it’s kind of a hard one. Basically; The Invisible is about a young guy named Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin). Nick is about to graduate High School and is thinking about leaving town and going to London. When his friend Pete ( Chris Marquette) gets into some financial trouble with a girl named Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva) whom is more or less the school troublemaker and an amateur thief. Annie who was recently ratted out to the police for robbing a jewelry store confronts Pete and threatens to stab him, if he does not let her know who the rat is. Pete says it’s Nick, thinking he was on a plane to London. Turns out Nick never went. And Anne and her thugs hunt Nick down and beat him him up really bad. However Anne takes it too far and ends up killing Nick. The next day Nick wakes up in the woods thinking that he had a little to much to drink at a party that night. When he goes in to school that day however he realizes that he’s actually dead. Now Nick must figure out how to communicate with the ones around him and help the people that he knows find his body. However there is a plot twist, which I won’t revel here in the review. But it takes the story in a whole other direction that involves Nick and Annie and a connection between the both of them.
The script for this film was not that bad, while it leaned heavy on character development, the story came off a bit too much like a teen drama more than it did a suspenseful one. It was kind of pawned off as a supernatural thriller with horror elements, and while the script does have a lot of supernatural elements to it. I didn’t find it to be that much of a thriller and it’s not even close to being a horror film. Towards the end of the script you can pretty much say the film had this sacrificial fantasy ending to it. One of my issues with the script however was all the hoopla that I as the viewer had to go thought to get to the end of this story. While we are told the true twist of the story about an half hour into the film, we’re then taken on a wild goose chase that ends with a not so happy ending. It dragged at a lot of points also, where I felt I was being dragged around from place to place just to get though the elements of the story. So in a nutshell expect a film that full of a lot of character development and that drags a bit.
The acting in The Invisible is actually the strong point in the film, while the film establishes more than one lead role in the film, both Justin Chatwin whom played Nick and Margarita Levieva who played Annie were both equally great in their roles. Margarita had a lot more acting to do however as the role of Annie seemed to a role that your normal everyday actress would not be able to pull off. I give the casting director credit for picking a fresh face instead of going with a well known actress. Margarita was the perfect fit for the role and she pulled it off very convincingly and with great perfection. If the filmmakers decided to cast a name like Lindsey Lohan in this role, it would of never worked. Academy award winner Marcia Gay Harden also has a small role in this film as Nicks over protective single mother. While it’s by no means the greatest role when has even been in; she was still very good in the role. The rest of the cast that rounds out this film also was pretty good as well.
The film had pretty good production value and why the sets and costume design were nothing out of the ordinary the film had some very nice breath taking visuals and some decent effects. There was not a large majority of CGI and make-up effects used in the film, but there were some pretty cool actions scenes.
Overall, The Invisible is a film that might not go over well with a typical horror audience. It’s a supernatural thriller with some fantasy elements that was made more along the lines for a teenage audience. While the story is interesting and has a lot of moral issues that are dealt with in the film, it’s not by any means a film that has the suspense of The Sixth Sense or Ghost. It a film that has a very twisty story ,but in the end comes together in an enlightening way.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
