Directed by Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2), Imaginary centres around a family made up of Max (Tom Payne – The Walking Dead), his new wife Jessica (DeWanda Wise – Jurassic World Dominion) and his children from his first marriage – Taylor (Taegen Burns – The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers) and Alice (Pyper Braun - Desperation Road).
Jessica is trying all she can do to win over Taylor and Alice, and while Alice is intrigued by Jessica’s work as an illustrator and writer of children’s books, Taylor is having nothing to do with ‘evil step mom’. At the same time Jessica is haunted by nightmares that she believes come straight from the characters of her books.
In a bid to make things better for her, Max decides that maybe it is best for them all to move to Jessica’s childhood home now that her father (Samuel Salary – All Creatures Here Below) has moved into assisted living.
All seems well when they first make the move, Jessica’s nightmares cease and even the kids seem more settled. But when Alice finds a teddy bear named Chauncey a new breed of nightmare begins for the entire family.
Now it is certainly not fair to sit here and say that Imaginary is a totally bad film. It is far from that and in fact the first half of the film does capture that Blumhouse creativity. While it is obvious that the screenwriting team, made up of Wadlow, Greg Erb (The Princess and the Frog) and Jason Oremland (Playmobil: The Movie), were influenced by films such as Child’s Play and Poltergeist, there are some moments that really catch the audience by surprise.
There is a major twist about Chauncey and his relationship with Jessica and Alice that many people will doubtfully see coming – and that is when the film is at its best, but it feels like after that things start to fall away pretty rapidly. The last quarter of this film feels like it is a blend of elements of Stranger Things and Insidious: The Red Door, and to be honest those sequences never really reach the suspense level that they should.
Then there is Chauncey as a character. Chauncey feels more threatening and scary when he is simply a teddy bear that seems to be able to move on his own. Certainly the filmmakers would have been hoping that the version of Chauncey that appears later in the movie would have been more frightening and that may have been the case if most horror audiences hadn’t seen a character very similar in Five Nights at Freddy’s recently.
Even the introduction of the character of Gloria (Betty Buckly – Split) seems clumsy. While she should have been one of the most important characters in the film, she ends up being someone just there to explain the plot to the audience while also being very similar to Elise (the character portrayed by Lin Shaye) in the Insidious franchise. In fact Imaginary and Insidious seem so entwined you are almost expecting an after-credits sequence to appear that reveals the films are in the same universe.
What does save this film a little are the acting performances. DeWanda Wise does the best with what she is given to work with while Taegen Burns announces herself as a star of the future. Likewise young Pyper Braun who acts well above her age and her performance is reminiscent of that of Drew Barrymore’s in E.T. Again, she is someone to watch for the future.
At the end of the day, Imaginary is a film that will entertain but at the same time hardened horror fans will easily be able to pick the many films and TV shows that serve as ‘inspirations’ for the screenwriters. It is a shame that a film with such a great twist is let down by a poor finale and here’s hoping if they decide to make an Imaginary 2 we see a film with a little more imagination.
Imaginary is currently screening in Phuket and is rated ‘15’.
2.5/5 Stars
David Griffiths has been working as a film and music reviewer for over 20 years. That time has seen him work in radio, television and in print. He is also an accredited reviewer for Rotten Tomatoes. You can follow him at www.facebook.com/subcultureentertainmentaus