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Sammy Jacobs

Spoiler 

Portrayed By: Jon Davey (TV)

The protagonist. He is suddenly pestered by a new friend of his, Brent Green, who is invisible.


  • Adaptational Attractiveness: The TV adaptation changed Sammy and his people from Starfish Aliens to Human Aliens, albeit ones with faces on the backs of their heads.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Even with the twist of him not being a human, he's still nice enough by the end of the book. The TV episode ends with him and his family ganging up on Brent.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: It is unknown if he was popular in school, but he is definitely not now, being teased and made fun of all over. Even his teacher gets in on the action!
  • Bad Liar: When he can finally tell that his mother won't believe his claim about the invisible boy, she asks him why he's holding a jacket, which he was wrestling with Brent over. Sammy says that he wanted to see if it fit, but his mother points out that they just bought that jacket a week ago, so of course it fits. She then asks him who he was talking to, and he says that he's in a play and is rehearsing some lines, even though he just tried to convince her he was talking with an invisible boy.
  • Black Sheep: Unlike the rest of his family that likes science, he likes science fiction.
  • Butt-Monkey: Is constantly framed by Brent's actions and not believed by the people around him.
  • Crying Wolf: Partly due to being really into science fiction and having an overactive imagination, his parents are even more unlikely than usual to believe him about Brent.
  • The Dog Bites Back: He is the victim of many pranks and frame-ups because of Brent’s actions. But when he finds out that Brent pretended to be the spirit that attacked him and Roxanne, this hits his Rage Breaking Point. He grabs his father's latest invention to reveal Brent's presence to his family and Roxanne.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Foolish to his brother Simon's Responsible.
  • I Let You Win: He claims this when Roxanne makes fun of him for doing badly in the race, which only angers her more.
  • Innocently Insensitive: A major problem of his. He bursts out laughing at certain antics of other events around him, leading many characters to think he is laughing at them, causing them to get offended.
  • Mr. Imagination: He often daydreams of science fiction material. This is part of the reason why almost no one believes him about Brent.
  • The Un-Favourite: His brother is more serious, mature and interested in actual science despite being younger, so of course their parents prefer him.
  • Unreliable Narrator: He constantly lets his imagination get the better of him, and at the haunted house, he stated that he dies, but immediately claims in the next chapter that he only imagined that he died. And given the nature of the book's bizarre Twist Ending, this might be a product of his unreliability as well.
  • You Have to Believe Me!: It's kind of hard to blame Roxanne for scoffing at his claims of meeting an invisible person considering he provides no evidence other than his unverifiable say so.

Brent Green

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brentinvisible.jpg
Spoiler 

Portrayed By: Darcy Weir (TV); Jack Black (Film)

An invisible boy who hounds Sammy.


  • Adaptational Villainy: The book leaves it ambiguous as to if he really meant to harm Sammy, but in the movie he's a straight up bad guy.
  • Hero Antagonist: When it's revealed Brent is a human and Sammy's an alien, Brent's pranks and torment seem more justified in that he is lashing out at the invaders who wiped out most of humanity.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: He seems to genuinely want to be Sammy's friend, despite doing a bad job at it.
  • Invisible Jerkass: Creates messes in Sammy's room (which frames him and gets him in trouble with his parents), plays pranks on Sammy’s brother, Simon (which ALSO frames him and gets him in trouble with his parents), and torments Roxanne at one point.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: His torture on Roxanne at the old house can be seen as rather satisfying considering what the latter put Sammy through in school just earlier.
  • Last of His Kind: It turns out Brent is the only actual human character in the book, having been made invisible to protect him from the alien citizens. The ending of the book says Brent will be put in a zoo because humans are an endangered species.
    • Also applies to the movie. Assuming R.L. Stine destroyed the manuscript used to imprison all the other monsters, he is the last monster that R.L. Stine ever created still on the loose.
  • Revenge: In the 2015 movie, he's the only monster who avoided capture, and makes his presence known to Stine by typing "The Invisible Boy's Revenge" on his typewriter.
  • Tragic Monster: One of the only human children in a planet full of aliens? Definitely tragic. The protagonists are even more monstrous than he is. In fact, the TV show's adaptation ends with the implications that Sammy and his parents are going to murder him in cold blood.
  • Troll: When Sammy gets fed up with Brent and tells him to leave him alone, Brent pretends to be highly offended and suddenly antagonistic. He opens the window, grabs Sammy, and makes it seem as if he's going to throw him out of it. No, Brent just did that for a laugh.
  • With Friends Like These...: Despite claiming to want to be his friend, Brent causes multiple problems for Sammy and gets him in trouble with the others around him.

Roxanne Johnson

Portrayed By: Dalene Irvine (TV)

Sammy's "best friend".


  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed, but the TV version is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, as it cuts most of her meanest moments from the book. While she's still rather sarcastic, she really does care about Sammy in this version.
  • Break the Haughty: Her cold demeanor and harsh attitude is broken when she gets caught up in paranormal activity at a haunted house that was orchestrated by Brent pretending to be a ghost.
  • Demoted to Extra: She doesn't have as big of a role in the episode as she does in the book. She disappears after she and Sammy go to the "haunted house", so she doesn't end up finding out for herself that Brent is real and actually a human.
  • Jerkass: Would be quite an understatement.
  • No Sympathy: After Sammy trips while running a race because of Brent, he ends up with scrapes, bruises, and mud all over him. But instead of feeling sorry for him, Roxanne calls him a clumsy and stupid cretin, even lambasting him for losing and making their team look bad.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: After her and Sammy's experience at the haunted house, she becomes much nicer to him, finally believing his claim about his invisible friend and sympathizing with him.
  • With Friends Like These...: Not only does she berate Sammy constantly, when he confides in her about meeting an invisible person she decides to humiliate him by telling the whole school about it.

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