Blumhouse has become a modern day Hammer Horror studio. They’ve collectively given us some truly unique and scary films over the years, many of which I have reviewed and enjoyed. From original films Happy Death Day and Truth or Dare to legacy sequels The Exorcist: Believer and Halloween, the studio has a range of horrors in their back catalogue. The thing they do best though is they seem to come up with new and original ideas from filmmakers who want to try different ways of telling scary stories. This leads me to their latest release Imaginary, which is based around the concept of imaginary friends being demons.
The idea behind Imaginary is both an interesting one and a gripping one, even with competition from another similar film later this year with the more family friendly film If. Imaginary starts off strong as DeWanda Wise plays Jessica, who suffers nightmares from her childhood about a terrifying spider creature which attacks her father. It is no surprise to learn these were not just nightmares. She is married to Max played by Tom Payne who already has two daughters, Alice and Taylor. Alice is the youngest and as the family move to Jessica’s old childhood home it is Alice who begins to develop a friendship with an imaginary friend through a teddy bear. This is when things from Jessica’s childhood are revealed.
The story of Imaginary isn’t exactly scary or exciting. It is completely predictable and there's a lot of elements borrowed from the Insidious film series. These elements include an elderly woman with common knowledge of this “realm” where the imaginary friends live, and it is this “realm” that looks and feels very similar to the Further from the Insidious films. It is a shame to have this film steal some of those ideas, and we don’t really get a chance to see much of this supernatural entity either as it is usually in the form of a teddy bear which isn’t really scary. The story and concept are set up in a way where you are invested in the film, but it just plays a bit too safe. Even the strained relationship between Taylor and Jessica has been done in similar ways in similar films.
There is a lot of backstory and history surrounding imaginary friends and I think the idea behind the film was to scare adults with children who have their own imaginary friends, but I feel like the film has a different message that it is trying to get across. The fear never really comes across and the film spends way too much time with its exposition. You’re constantly waiting for the story to move along and learn more about this mysterious entity and what it wants but by the time you do it is near the end of the film. I will admit the design of the creature did look a little freaky but it didn’t feel dangerous or as evil as I thought it would be. Imaginary can be entertaining but sadly not as scary as you would hope from the studio that gave us Paranormal Activity.
★★☆☆☆
2/5
Final Verdict:
Imaginary has a fun set-up; what if your child’s imaginary friend was an evil entity? The film however decides to focus more on the how and why this is evil instead of actually showing us. There is only one sequence in the film where we see the entity attempt to hurt or kill someone and that’s about it. As a horror film it disappoints, but as a family drama it does sort of work. The script isn’t great but DeWanda Wise does her best at playing a step-mother with childhood trauma. Imaginary is sadly one horror film that isn’t worth seeing.
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Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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