It’s yet another sub-par day at the Blumhouse factory, production line operating at full, breakneck speed, yet machinery on the perilous verge of total collapse. The house of horror, behind hit franchises like Insidious, Paranormal Activity and The Purge, has become something of a franchise in itself, a branded string of low-budget films making a high profit, yet quality control has forever been an issue and in the last year or so, it’s barely existed.
On the first cursed weekend of January 2023, usually home to the most unintentionally horrifying horror films, M3gan upended critical expectations and scored reviews as impressive as its box office total. But normality soon resumed with a limp Insidious sequel, a junky time travel slasher, a loathed Exorcist reboot, an astonishingly dull video game adaptation and, most recently, a soggy haunted pool horror. Yet somehow, the very worst was yet to come and now here it is, crash-landing into cinemas with an embargo so late some preview audiences will have already started watching it. Imaginary, teased by an audio-first, cinema-only trailer far smarter than the movie itself, is a shameless grab bag of stolen parts clumsily stitched together with such carelessness, it’s a miracle it’s even getting a theatrical release. The bar might have fallen to its lowest ever point for studio horror but it’s still a surprise to see just how bad things can really get.
