Writers and Directors, Matthew Diebler and Jacob Gillman, created an excellent flick. THE INVISIBLE MOTHER was one of the best low-grade, low-budget ($100,000) horror films I have seen in a long time. Well-made, creepy, and very low cheesiness all added up to a pretty great film.

THE INVISIBLE MOTHER follows Marcy (Fayelyn Bilodeau) as she begins a stay at her grandparents’ home to help her grandfather, Archie (Richard Riehle), take care of her grandmother, Mona (Helen Slayton-Hughes), who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
The film opens with Marcy in her car who sees a strange man walking in the street bent over backward muttering incomprehensible phrases. Once she arrives at her grandparents’ home, she notices oddities: her tooth brush is in pieces, then back together after she looks away and back at it again and her grandmother stops in the middle of the kitchen talking to no one.
The eccentric neighbor lady, Coco (Kiersten Warren), stops by and the viewers get a taste of this strange lass. She says she is a medium and surprisingly drops a pretty memorable quote, “There’s more to this life than what you can actually see with your eyes. Life would be terribly dull without mystery.”

Coco’s character, as I said, is a little eccentric and strange, but she fits the feel of the film very well. Marcy is a very real and relatable character. Mona and Archie are your perfect stereotypical and very believable old couple. All the actors were great and nailed their roles, even drug dealer and horror guru, Wyatt (Kale Clauson).

After Coco’s visit, Marcy goes into the garage to retrieve a metal fish from a box. While there, Marcy also takes a picture from a photo album in the box. The picture is of a woman in a black cloak with a baby in front of her. Marcy later uses this photo to purchase weed from Wyatt. Wyatt sells drugs out of his ice cream truck. He and Marcy knew each other growing up.
There’s a lot of build-up and foreshadowing until one night, Marcy is out smoking pot in the backyard (to which the viewers are treated with a very odd “high” sequence) when she hears something in the house and goes to investigate. Marcy hears the TV on in the garage (why there is a TV in there I don’t know).

The same night, while reading in bed, she hears scratching and knocking on the walls all around her room until it gets to the door. She opens the door and finds a sewing pin on the floor. She throws the weed away thinking that must be the problem. Marcy wakes up the next morning to her phone precariously balanced with knives under running water in the kitchen sink.

Later Marcy picks up a disconnected phone and hears screaming and other garbled words she cannot understand. While she’s on the phone the viewers get a glimpse of her grandmothers’ pin pad only to see all the pins bending and twisting.

The creepiness and wacky events escalate from here. Marcy sees a bearded man masturbating in the corner of her room, the dog goes missing leaving hair everywhere and the word “Hund” written all over the walls (“Hund” is German for dog) and she hears voices speaking German and sees shadows behind a curtain.

Later she hears banging in the garage and sees a man laying there. He jumps at her. Archie goes to fend the garage ghost off, rushes off, and disappears out of thin air. After Archie’s disappearance, the movie gets a little odd for 10 minutes or so when we see Mona and Marcy sitting by a fire outside the house; too afraid to go in. The idea is understandable, but it was a little funny looking.

Marcy goes inside during one of these outdoor nights to get a sweatshirt. While inside she hears the tv playing in one of the bedrooms and watches a few minutes of one of the weirdest clips I think I have ever seen. My mouth was open the entire time. It was very strange and extremely unsettling. To explain it would ruin the disturbing nature. You have to watch it.
Coco visits the next day and all hell breaks loose. This is where THE INVISIBLE MOTHER really amps up in a major way.

I don’t want to give away too much but I thoroughly enjoyed THE INVISIBLE MOTHER. I was never bored during any of the 106 minutes and honestly, I was really impressed. The writers/directors made the most of what they what they had. I definitely recommend checking this one out when it is available.

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Anthony Petro

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