Blumhouse Productions has long prided itself on delivering independent productions on a tight budget. Their latest entry, Imaginary,attempts to put a spooky twist on the friend you imagined growing up, but with laughable results. Horror cinema is already awash with “bad imaginary friends.” The demonic Daniel in Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Daniel isn’t Real and the whispering voices of dolls and puppets like Chucky from Child’s Play and the long tradition of ventriloquists going mad and blaming their dummy. The choices typically are – make a puppet, be a puppet, or let loose a monster on an unsuspecting world. Say hello to Mr. Howdy!
Jessica (DeWanda Wise) is an illustrator of children’s stories. She has recurring nightmares about imaginary creatures coming to life and attacking her in her sleep. She lives with her new husband, Max (Tom Payne), and his two kids from a previous marriage — Taylor (Taegan Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun). The happy couple decide to move back into Jessica’s family home to try to stop her nightmares and bring her closer to the children as their new mother.
The youngest child, Alice, discovers a mysterious teddy bear named Chauncey, who once belonged to Jessica. Chauncey has an unsettling nature, but nevertheless Alice develops a strong bond with him. She starts fulfilling a to-do list that Chauncey has ‘written’ out for her – some tasks which raise Jessica’s eyebrows. Something nefarious is happening in this house in which Jessica is no stranger. What appears fanciful starts to become real.
Director Jeff Wadlow, who collaborated with Blumhouse on Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island, has never given his audience much credit. He is quoted as saying, “I’d love to keep making smart and fun movies.” The question this raises is when exactly will he start making them? The plot moves at a treacle pace, delivering exposition in ways that explain concepts to the audience that have been adequately sequenced in the scene prior. You almost want to yell, “Yes, we are aware” at the screen.
Betty Buckley, who plays nosey neighbour Gloria, at least doesn’t giggle through every cliched line of dialogue. Gloria is there to make the viewer aware that more prominent supernatural elements are at play here, delivering the backstory in a hokey manner just so you don’t miss what you’ve already guessed. Jud Crandall’s “Sometimes dead is better,” is Shakespearean in comparison.
The laziness of Imaginary means that nothing works to be genuinely creepy. Jump scares are common and done without any discernment. Toys have unsettling audio cues that end up grating on the ear rather than raising the hair on your skin. There isn’t a drop of blood until past the hour mark— rendering it gutless and faint-hearted.
While the last act attempts to create a visual environment beyond a conventional home, it starts to beg unfortunate comparisons to Mike Myers’ The Cat in the Hat. The ending is just as nonsensical and unwieldly. Imaginary a jumbled mess that entirely relies on the performances of DeWanda Wise and Pyper Braun to keep the film afloat. Braun, in particular, allows some of the film’s most pleasing moments to occur thanks to her infectious and playful mannerisms.
Imaginary is barely a horror film. It dedicates most of its laborious runtime to teenage angst and nuclear family breakdowns and has neither scares nor thrills. It may be about imagination, but it lacks it. It could be one of the year’s best comedies, but for all the wrong reasons.
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Cast: DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun
Writers: Greg Erb, Jason Oremland, Jeff Wadlow
