Girl Meets World star Rowan Blanchard headlines her first Disney Channel Original Movie, Invisible Sister. Paris Berelc from Disney XD’s Mighty Med plays her pretty, popular sister and another Disney Channels face is Karan Brar from Jessie and Bunk’d. As the fourth DCOM of 2015, this film has to hold up to Bad Hair Day, Teen Beach 2 and the fantastic Descendants. And since it has a Halloween theme, it also draws comparisons to films like Halloweentown and Twitches.
Cleo is a smart outsider at school with a chemistry teacher who pushes her to be better. Cleo has always felt invisible compared to her popular sister Molly. When Cleo’s homework experiment goes awry, she accidentally turns Molly invisible on Halloween. To help Molly out, Cleo poses as her in a Dorothy costume with a masquerade mask. Both sisters come to understand each other better throughout their day, but it quickly escalates into a race against time to find a cure before Molly becomes invisible forever.
While formulaic and predictable, Invisible Sister gets a few things right. Firstly, Rowan Blanchard is as charming here as she is on Girl Meets World and Paris Berelc plays off her well, creating a nice sisterly chemistry. The New Orleans setting also adds some nice color to the film, although it is not used nearly enough as the majority of the film takes place inside a school. Lastly, the invisibility gimmicks are fun.
As with most DCOM’s, Invisible Sister has several moments that make you go “Whaaaaaat???” Most of them surround Molly’s boyfriend, who goes by the nickname “The Coug.” He mistakenly thinks the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz is a bear and dresses as such for Halloween. When his costume gets swiped, he somehow didn’t bring shoes to school. But the weirdest and worst moment of the entire film is a scene where he is on the toilet and appears to have a poopgasm. No thank you, and eww!
Invisible Sister is the worst DCOM of 2015, but 2015 has been a fantastic year for DCOMs. It’s not horrible, but it’s not particularly good either. It makes several unsuccessful attempts at being funny and doesn’t land the emotional ending you hope will pay off. But if nothing else, you’ll never forget Coug’s intimate toilet scene. Good one, Disney Channel.
I give Invisible Sister 2 out of 5 invisible moths.