Almost Invisible

I find that a terrible movie that broadcasts its amateur maker’s steep learning curve is usually more interesting than a terrible movie made by a professional for whom it was just another day at the office. And the more ambitious the amateur’s vision, the more compelling their failure. In the case of Almost Invisible, apparently the first and last writing/producing/directing effort of a 50-something MD (currently serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for running a pill mill!), the lion’s share of the effort was expended in the editing room, where 95 minutes of inept cinematography and unintelligible dialogue were sliced and diced in a dizzying frenzy. If not for the ho-hum premise (horny college kids partying in a haunted house), the nonstop soundtrack of generic post-grunge tunes, and the comical number of low-angle shots foregrounding fit bikini butts, its surrealist seizure might have seemed almost artful. The muddled horror trash we got instead isn’t exactly preferable, but I do enjoy the mystery of why its maker went to as much trouble as he did. People are so weird! May it ever be so.