Imaginary is the latest horror movie to join the Blumhouse catalogue, following in the footsteps of recent scary titles like M3GAN, Five Nights at Freddy's and The Black Phone., but it doesn't quite stand out from some of its predecessors.
The movie, directed by Kick-Ass 2's Jeff Wadlow, follows Jessica (DaWanda Wise), a woman who moves back into her childhood home with her family. Soon after arriving, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey that she finds in the basement.
From there, Alice starts playing games with Chauncey the Bear that begin playful and harmless, but soon become increasingly sinister. Jessica intervenes and realizes that Chauncey is not just a stuffed bear, and it becomes a race against time to protect the family from this malevolent presence.
On paper, this is a strong concept. Plenty of horror movies have tapped into the idea of creepy dolls or toys like Annabelle in the Conjuring series, Chucky in Child's Play, and Billy the Puppet in Saw who, while isn't sentient himself, does serve as a freaky disguise for his creator, Jigsaw.
So the idea of a scary teddy bear is a strong one. To take something that is meant to bring comfort to children (and often adults!) and make it horrifying is an intriguing basis for a horror movie, and it's a shame it didn't quite hit the heights it could have.
There is a disappointing lack of Chauncey in a movie about a sinister teddy bear, and the movie seems to focus more on the family's drama than the main antagonist. While there's nothing wrong with set-up and some tension building, the filmmakers could have done more to utilize him, a la Poltergeist where things are moving when they really shouldn't be.
The few instances where we do see Chauncey are creepy, and there are some decent visuals even if some of the special effects aren't great. It's also very repetitive, once you've seen the same creepy shadow technique a few times, it starts to get a little old. All of this is very disappointing considering they had such a fun idea to play with.
Despite an unnatural script with some strange dialogue choices, the actors involved did their best to give their all, especially DaWanda Wise who plays the concerned stepmother trying to figure out what's going on. Performance-wise, none could really be faulted, even if it does feel like a family drama with background horror rather than the other way around.
Aesthetically it's good, with decent sound design and an atmosphere that mirrors some old-school horror movies, but the style over substance approach is disappointing when the movie could've gone a lot harder than it did.
The third act takes a very interesting turn and, without giving too much away, mirrors Insidious in taking characters and viewers to a strange new place. While it attempts to provide some answers about why Chauncey is acting like this, it's a little jarring in places.
There are also a few questions you'll never get answers to, so don't go into this expecting things to be tied up in a neat little bow. It leaves things frustratingly ambiguous and the ending itself is a cliffhanger, doing that classic horror tactic of "Will there be a sequel? Wait and see!" which has certainly had mixed results over the years.
Ultimately, Imaginary is fine, and it's not the worst horror offering out there but when it's competing with recent smash hits like Talk to Me, it doesn't bring anything new to the table.
But if you fancy seeing a teddy bear terrorizing a family for two hours, you could do worse, and it beats a chaotic visit to Build-A-Bear on a busy Saturday afternoon. Just about!
Imaginary is playing in cinemas worldwide.
