Imaginary

Family moves to creepy house; a young child has paranormal experiences; a moody teen does moody teen things; not all the adults are what they seem; a character finds repressed memories are dragged up; yada, yada, yada.

It's not quite bad, but it certainly isn't good. There's a bit of Poltergeist, a bit of Nightmare on Elm Street, a bit of Labyrinth - and it's unclear whether this is meant as an homage-melange, or a pilfering of tropes from a variety of better films.

The film relies heavily on jump-scares, but there's little sense of terror. The twists can be seen coming a mile away. The ending is frankly lazy.

The cast do their best. Young Pyper Braun is good as the girl at the centre of things, DeWanda Wise OK as the step-mother trying to penetrate the mystery. The rest are either under-used or let down by a thin script and unimaginative direction (or both).

The special effects budget was clearly painfully small, and no-one was able to anything convincing or scary with it.

Not a film that will live long in the memory.

My wife and I attended a screening of the Blumhouse film Imaginary (2024) last night. The storyline revolves around a woman with a tragic past who marries a man with two children, all moving into the stepmother's childhood home. As they attempt to adapt to their new life, the ghosts from their past, both figuratively and literally, resurface.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2), the film stars DeWanda Wise (Jurassic World Dominion), Thomas Payne (The Walking Dead), Taegen Burns (The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers), Pyper Braun (Erin & Aaron), and Betty Buckley (Split).

Despite its potential with all of the worthwhile elements, the movie falls short in putting everything together. While the family dynamic and characters are well-established, the revelation of the plot's intricacies causes the film to unravel. DeWanda Wise delivers a solid performance, and Pyper Braun's child acting feels authentic. The horror elements show promise with a few effective jump scares and one notable, albeit more fun than good, kill scene. However, the poorly written and overacted character of the old lady detracts from the overall experience. The film's conclusion, despite a couple of clever twists, fails to salvage the narrative.

In conclusion, Imaginary possesses the ingredients for a worthwhile horror film but falters in execution. I'd give it a 4/10 and recommend skipping it.

I usually like this genre of horror that requires suspension of disbelief in a massive way to believe something inanimate can be sinister. Here though it was far off with the camera work and coincidental soundtrack doing nothing to make the dumb teddy possess any quality of fear. This was made worse as other times the camera work was excellent in composition as well as lighting and sound bearing hallmarks of quality movie making. The high drama aspect required to create chills didn't hit at all and dialogue in places seemed to be very low effort. The handful of shivers that didn't require acting did hit but in hindsight had nowhere near the impact they could have had. Towards the end the horror did take a twist reminiscent of nightmare of elm street's dream sequence end in suspense and thrills.

I'd be surprised if there was a sequel or a series of movies in the future in the same way as the conjuring.

Ironically, I feel like the movie lacked some imaginative ideas for a movie like this. Also, is it me or is nothing actually that scary anymore? The actors weren't bad, they would only act out what's in front of them but I liked the idea of this movie a lot but not what was delivered, sadly. Also, I didn't see any need for the husband to even be in the movie, that felt like a pointless character to be trimmed out. Additionally, there is always the same kind of family dynamics in these movies with a miserable angsty teenager etc, would have been cool to make the movie stand out and not always follow the samey blueprint.

Really terrible on all fronts from the acting, shoddy editing, weird production design and bad writing. I used to have so much respect for Dewanda Wise but this movie made her look really bad. Felt like she just showed up and learned her lines that morning, random emotional scenes that felt out of place and acting on par with melodramatic lifetime movies. There was zero chemistry between all the actors. Worst casting was the father who kept falling in and out of his accent from American to Australian. I did not buy him as a father at all, and the age difference did not feel authentic. Dewanda just felt like she was showing up for her check, she needs to fire her agent. The cinematography felt too much like a TV movie with special effects that looked like a 90's Disney film like "Don't Look Under the Bed." I got whiplash from the dark scenes transitioning straight to bright sunlight. The film was laughably bad, I'm shocked it made it into theaters. There was not a single good performance in this film. Teenagers in the theatre kept chatting and playing on their phones and laughing, which tells me even more that nobody was invested in this mediocre film.

I didn't buy for a second that any of the characters ever cared about one another. Teenage daughter was a clichè stereotype I've seen so many times, nothing fresh or intriguing. I did not buy for a second Dewanda cared about those kids and there was zero chemistry akin to actors talking to a pillow because nothing genuine bounced between them. Just flat and forced emotion that was never earned.