Imaginaire

There are many horror flicks with evil-infested dolls or puppets, but you keep hoping for something different. Alas, this "Imaginary" is as generic and predictable as they come: the little kid in a home with some complicated family-dynamics, the house with a creepy history, the cute doll (here a teddybear) that we at times (oh horror!!) see turn his head and that more and more gets a supernatural hold on the kid, and a climactic finale in which the evil finally shows its true terrifying shape. It's all there.

Well, even predictability doesn't have to be bad, if it's well done, with some decent special effects and a solid story. But unfortunately all this was not the case here. The story is shaky and unnecessary complicated, and direction and editing are disappointing: the whole movie is way too talkative and explanatory (especially from the moment the old neighbor lady steps in), and for a supposed horror movie it's way too low on serious scares. Teddybear Chauncey is definitely no Chucky or Annabelle, until the final showdown he doesn't cause any deaths or destruction, even the obnoxious boyfriend (in most horror movies a number one candidate for a gruesome killing) got away in one piece. There's an inventive plot-twist halfway in time, and the supernatural Escher-like labyrinth, in which the family in the end gets trapped to fight the evil, is well done, but that couldn't save the movie. A pity, since the acting was pretty good. The cast had earned a better vehicle to ride in.

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.

I don't know that anything could convince me that AI wasn't heavily involved with writing this. It's offensively bad. It's a boring concept, the bear is the least threatening thing I've ever seen, the plot barely exists, and it's way too long. I'd call it comically bad, but that would imply a "so bad it's good" sort of movie. It's almost insulting that Blumhouse is able to get away with making movies like this into a full theatrical release.

I hate this movie and everything that it represents. This is the laziest, most boring thing I've seen in ages, and there are people somewhere in Hollywood making millions of of it. Bleh.

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.