Jonah Naplan March 9, 2024
Between this and “Kung Fu Panda 4,” both movies featuring bears currently playing in theaters seem to have been birthed from the same ideology, that of filler cinema. “Imaginary” is not a dreadful horror movie like some critics will tell you, but it’s also not a very good one, and seems to only exist so Blumhouse Productions can continue “filling out” their repertoire with scary movies about various subjects, whether that’s possessed children, psychos in masks, killer dolls or murderous swimming pools. “Imaginary” is about a manipulative teddy bear who coerces a little girl into doing increasingly disturbing things, and it’s executed with just enough imagination, for use of a cheesy word, to stand out amidst the masses of inferior scary movie fare like “Night Swim” and “The Exorcist: Believer,” but not so much that it ascends to the categories of something like “Talk to Me” or “Barbarian.” It’s the “almost” factor that’s the most frustrating thing about “Imaginary,” and that goes for both worlds; it’s not so bold or crazy that it becomes something truly special, but it’s also not so terrible that it turns into something of a horror cult classic in the same vein as one of director Jeff Wadlow’s previous movies, “Truth or Dare.”
The principal teddy bear in question is named Chauncey and he’s discovered by little Alice (Pyper Braun) when she moves into her step-mom Jessica’s (DeWanda Wise) childhood home along with moody older sister Taylor (Taegen Burns) and musician dad Max (Tom Payne). The sisters’ biological mother lives outside the realm of this picture because of mental health struggles, and they haven’t really warmed up to Jessica yet, who herself lost her own mother figure at an early age, too. Horror connoisseurs would know that demons and malevolent spirits love to terrorize those who are grieving, and Chauncey adheres to that pattern. Scary movie tropes abound in his devious schemes of possession, and the universe these characters live in is a walking cliché of details both large and infinitesimal; a portentous old neighbor, a creepy basement, dark corners that house horrors both anthropomorphic and arachnoid. You know, all the usual suspects.
Max leaves to go on tour shortly before all the action begins, so Jessica is left to connect with her step-daughters all alone, on her own terms. “Imaginary” plays out as a sort of pseudo-familial drama, mixed with a fantasy adventure and also a horror movie, never able to focus on one singular concept or idea and run with it consistently for a reasonable amount of time. Basically the central narrative idea is that Alice has attached herself to an imaginary friend with evil intentions and can’t seem to remove herself from his grasp. The film reckons, if not explicitly, that the only way to undo said curse is to procure the love and affection of a mother-daughter relationship through the definite means of going through hell together.
Even so, this dynamic isn’t constructed in the strongest way and doesn’t end up developing itself organically which is particularly disappointing considering what a solid actress DeWanda Wise is and the fine work she’s turned in here, too. The biggest problem is that the script by Wadlow and co-writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland only wants to be a generic horror movie for so long before turning completely fantastical in a way that doesn’t seem to be of creative intention, but rather because the writers wrote themselves into a corner and then realized that turning outlandish was the only way out. Essentially, Chauncey promises Alice that if she abides by his rules and does the sinister things he wants, the bear will take her on a trip to the “Never-Ever,” a trippy, checker-boarded alternate universe of monsters, possessed children, and long hallways of deadly possibilities, all accessed via a hidden passageway in the wall straight out of “Coraline.” Our trio pays a visit to this fantastical land during the better part of the third act, and it’s the film’s least convincing sequence, despite a couple of neat compositions with an amusing use of VFX.
“Imaginary,” like so many other horror movies of its time, doesn’t realize that going bigger doesn’t equal better, and it’s often the more intimate, close-quarters scares that intrigue the most. When the characters are confined to the house, the film is at its most fun, but when it tries to add backstory to explain what’s really going on here, it gets more and more convoluted to the point where we just give up trying to follow the plot. Right now we’re sort of at a depressing intersection between wanting horror movies to just be simple, but not so simple that they lose sight of what’s important to a great script and how characters draw our attention. “Imaginary” is a prime example of what it looks like when a horror movie tries to overexplain everything, thus compromising the elements that really do work, which, in the case of this movie, are the surprise bursts of inspiration and fun that prove what the film could have been had it instead leaned all into the campiness of the piece with no strings attached.
The fact that it’s also overlong and feels like it’s going to end three different times just adds to the notion that “Imaginary” knows it’s got a strong concept but isn’t sure what to do with it. Like so many other horror movies with great ideas but missed potential, “Imaginary” has the workings of something more innovative hidden underneath its simulacral skin, but you’ll have to use your own imagination to ever see it creep out.
Now playing in theaters.