If you’re wondering how Imaginary managed to make a teddy bear scary, well… it didn’t. This film falls into the awkward category of taking itself too seriously to be fun and campy, but not scary enough to keep you up at night. It’s a hybrid of the two, with a few unsettling moments, a few laughs, and not a whole lot of creativity in between.
Our main character, Jessica (DeWanda Wise) decides to move back into her childhood home with her husband and two step-daughters, hoping that because she was happy there once, her new family will find happiness, too. They’re settling in when the youngest daughter, Alice (Pyper Braun) finds an old teddy bear in the attic, naming it Chauncey and quickly forming an attachment to it. What seems like an innocent relationship with an imaginary friend starts to take a dark turn, however, as Alice’s behavior begins to frighten Jessica. When Alice is lured into the ‘Never Ever’, an alternate universe inhibited by malevolent imaginary friends, Jessica follows in a desperate attempt to save her before it’s too late.
Dynamic characters are typically hard to come by in horror films, and this one is no exception. We have all the cliches – the main character with a dark, mysterious past; the oblivious father; the bratty teenager; the unsettling child (to be honest, Alice was creepier than Chauncey). None of them are remotely likable besides Jessica, a bland but inoffensive character. Her husband, Max (Tom Payne) takes the oblivious husband trope to the next level and leaves early on in the film to go on tour. This decision makes him particularly unlikable since he leaves the day after a traumatic incident with his mentally unstable ex-wife, who sneaks into the house and attacks Jessica in front of his daughters. The least-likable character award, however, goes to the oldest stepdaughter, Taylor (Taegan Burns). The moody teenager is already a tired trope, and Taylor’s continual snide remarks and unfounded attitude towards Jessica make the audience kind of hope she gets stuck in the alternate world with the demons.
While the main characters are bland, nosy neighbor Gloria (Betty Buckley) provided comedic relief throughout the film, though whether it was intentional or not remains unclear. After spending decades researching imaginary friends, she unabashedly delights in following Jessica into the Never Ever, ecstatic that her research has been proven true. She’s obviously a villain, but rather than providing a sinister presence, Gloria feels like a cartoon evil scientist in the form of an eccentric grandma.
The first half of the film handled the horror aspect much better than the second half; in particular, the faceless figure lingering in the background invoked a feeling of anxiety and dread. Admittedly, there was one particular scene of Chauncey that was very well-done; the camera zoomed in on the bear in dim lighting, highlighting its eerily wide black eyes. However, the tension fell apart completely in the second half of the film. Monsters often become less scary when they’re revealed in horror films, and this is clearly the case in Imaginary. Chauncey takes the forms of a monstrous bear and a spider-like creature in the Never Ever, but while both are unnerving to look at, neither provokes the heart-racing terror that horror enthusiasts crave.
The premise of the film is creative, but the execution takes an interesting concept and flattens it into something unmemorable. If you’re going to watch this film, do it the right way, with funny friends and low expectations.
In cinemas nationwide now