Almost Invisible Has Students in Pornography Class?
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Almost Invisible is an insult to indie filmmaking with a plot that makes no sense, characters with no identity, laughable effects and abysmal video and audio.
Written by James "Crypticpsych" Lasome
June 1, 2011
Movie Trailer
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Release: 2010 (USA), April 19, 2011 (DVD)
Written and Directed by: David Allingham
Starring:
Sara Cole as April
Sam Navarro as Drew
Hillary Barnett as Jeopardy
Brittany Elsner as Haley
Daniel Mustone as Nick
A group of college students are hanging out after what seems to be their pornography class. Seriously, all we see of this class is them watching a video of a naked woman lying on a couch then getting stabbed and the class itself kind of groping at itself (for instance, one of the girls plays with a thumbtack directly in front of her crotch the entire scene). Then the group decides they want to party. The friendly neighborhood Goth chick, April (Cole), overhears the party planning and because one of the "kids" was told by their parents to be nice to everyone, the group agrees to hold their party at April's creepy house. And by "creepy", I mean made up of the finest home decor Pier One could sell. If you're thinking "Hey, that sounds like a rip-off of Night of the Demons", that's what I thought too. I then dismissed that thought from my mind the more I watched as I realized claiming this was ripping that off would be an insult to Night of the Demons.
I honestly cannot explain the rest of Almost Invisible. Nearest I can tell, April acts freaky, and seduces one of the guys. The rest of the group parties elsewhere in the house and confirms that this is the lamest party ever given, evidenced by two of the characters sword fighting with 
fireplace tools and then busting out laughing as if they've done the most awesome thing ever. As the night goes on, people have sex randomly and generally act like jackasses (yet the movie seems surprisingly shy about showing breasts, only actually doing so on rare occasions). April seems to cause the house to fight back against them and lock them in… yet claims that she's not doing it. The group then tries to find a way to escape and survive, by which I mean "whines, moans, and tries to blame each other for the ‘supernatural' events while hideously bad effects happen around them".
Almost Invisible is why some people have a bad impression of indie filmmaking. "Indie" and "low-budget" are terms usually associated with bad acting, bad scripts, bad sound, bad lighting, and bad effects. Many indie films get at least one of those pieces right, and a fair few pull off more than one. Almost Invisible, on the other hand, botches just about everything. In terms of acting, Sara Cole's "April" is the only performance remotely worthwhile, yet it is still one-dimensional and minimally explained. The rest of the cast are all whiny, annoying, badly-acted, and so interchangeable that I literally cannot match a single other character name in this movie to an actor or actress without rewatching it or cheating with the credits.
It doesn't help that the lines they're reading are all either ear-bleedingly stupid, annoying, or make no sense. The Almost Invisible script and story are near-unintelligible. We don't know who these people are. We don't know why they're partying. We don't know how they relate to each other. We don't REALLY know what's going on with the house. Combine all of this with the fact that virtually no plot point in the story is explained or made clear, and a viewing of this film is an exercise in frustration and futility.
That, of course, would be bad enough. But then the viewer has to deal with the sound and video. The sound varies wildly. While most times actors' mouths do match their words, those words can't be heard because of echoing, loud music, or mumbling. Almost Invisible would benefit from subtitles. The video fares little better, coming across as jaggy and low-quality. In addition, the director apparently decided that cruddy video effects, rewinds, color changes, badly-done afterimages, and other amateur editing choices were the order of the day. The viewer quickly realizes what they're in for thanks to the opening credits which are composed of reversed footage of a person writing actor names on a 
set of sticky-note index cards while various color changes, speed increases, and video edits apparently try to convey the massive excitement of someone writing on index cards. As Almost Invisible rolls on, it manages to limbo itself under the lowest bar of computer effects imaginable by way of such gems as CG/photoshopped blood on actors, a CG/photoshopped hanged actor, and objects that are supposed to be "floating" around a room but only look like flat 2D cut-out pictures drifting around.
Overall, Almost Invisible earns the lowest mark I can give for the pure and simple fact that I can find next to nothing it does right and was not this angry watching a screener since Lesbian Vampires. It's badly-acted and written, sounds bad, looks bad, and has worse computer effects and editing than your average Syfy Channel or Asylum movie. Its "indie", "low-budget" nature is no excuse for the final product; even BAD indie movies I've seen aren't this bad.
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