Film Review - Imaginary
Images courtesy of StudioCanal.
After a solid decade of box office and varying degrees of critical acclaim, Blumhouse is fast becoming more of an abandoned house, with most of the past year's offerings flatlining with audiences and analysts alike. The indie film studio, known mostly for its horror films (cut to every time you've seen “from the producers of The Purge, Insidious and Get Out” in a trailer) has nearly always been associated with low budget productions of uneven quality. But after the unstoppable momentum from Whiplash to M3GAN, it feels far more like they're now barely treading water (literally, in the case of Night Swim, which released a mere two months ago but may as well have been an eternity). Now along comes March’s mishap, Imaginary - a film that, despite its title, doesn't boast much in the way of creativity. Let's dive in, shall we?
The film starts off with stepmother Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moving back into her childhood home with her new family, consisting of husband Max (Tom Payne), and her two step-daughters, bratty teen Taylor (Taegen Burns) and the innocent youngster Alice (Pyper Braun). This house happens to be the one Jessica's mother committed suicide in, a piece of history that seems to have resulted in her father being institutionalised, so right off the bat, the motives for coming back seem a little off. That is until Alice begins talking to her teddy bear Chauncey - an imaginary friend that appears to have strange ties to Jessica's past.
Sound familiar? This is just the start of Imaginary’s many problems, which include - but certainly aren't limited to - an absolute lack of narrative momentum, woefully unnatural dialogue (one of the few times I've truly thought that an AI was possibly utilised during the scriptwriting process), tonal inconsistencies, bad acting, ugly cinematography, and above all, an absence of original ideas. I get it, studio horror films such as this are rarely chock full of innovation, but Imaginary feels particularly phoned in, with the sheer amount of played-out tropes and stolen ideas it haphazardly throws at the wall. It's completely derivative, a bland mix of Insidious-meets-M3GAN-meets-Coraline. To say this is Tim Burton's wet dream would be overselling it as something almost interesting: this is more like Tim Burton ate way too much sushi, doom scrolled Pinterest for an hour, and then threw up in a gas station toilet.
Despite definitely *thinking* it is a horror movie, and even though some of the visuals in the scares are actually kind of good, there is far too much dead air - about 80% of which is filled with adults having extremely serious conversations about the concept of imaginary friends. I don't know that many people who had imaginary friends, let alone people who could recount specific memories of these childhood apparitions, and yet it seems like the only thing any of the adults really want to speak about. It's actually quite funny once you pick up on it, like none of the inhabitants of the story have lives outside of pondering the primary concern of the plot. This results in a few absolutely golden moments, where the characters’ sincere belief in the high-concept ideas the film fiddles with are blurted out in awkwardly serious lines like “Has your daughter picked up any new hobbies lately, like ventriloquism?”. Thanks to the stiff performances, any semblance of suspense fizzles out faster than a forgotten soft drink, and all that's left are the moments where it gets so dumb that it's fun.
Thankfully, there is a moment where the film finally remembers that it's a movie and stuff hits the fan. Granted, there's about 20 minutes left of its 104-minute runtime, but hey, better late than never, I guess. We finally get a full onslaught of bizarro funhouse visuals, and it’s here that Imaginary seems much more conscious of its tone. Not quite in control, no, but there is some more intentional camp and more overt horror, however artificial it feels. There's also some very neat practical effects work, with Chauncey taking on a nightmarish appearance and decimating a villainous character with comedic timing right as they reach the apex of their third act monologue, and there's a nice helping of silly bug-eyes and tentacles. I should say that this portion is mostly entertaining because the rest of the experience is so dull, so by comparison it feels like a breath of fresh air, or at least a fan set on low, gently blowing a fart away.
Imaginary is a confounding experience, with absolutely none of the first draft wrinkles of the script ironed out. It's a shame to think that this was advertised so inventively at first, with mysterious trailers tacked onto screenings that featured a mostly blank screen and a collection of horrific sound effects, inviting viewers to “imagine” the film they were being marketed. I guess full credits go to Jason Blum and his team for that one, because for all it's worth, he's still a decent businessman. For every Imaginary that flounders at the box office, there's a Five Nights at Freddy's that's sure to break records. I can only hope that if they're trying to make franchises out of films like Imaginary and FNAF, they learn from the mistakes of the first entry, because young, soon-to-be horror fans deserve gateway films so much better than this.
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Imaginary is screening in cinemas from Thursday 7th of March. For tickets and more info, click here.