By-the-numbers horror lacking in imagination
Imaginary (M, 104 mins) Directed by Jeff Wadlow Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett
So, a newly blended family move into a big ol’ generic house in the suburbs of a nameless American city. But within a couple of days of arriving, the youngest daughter is having a series of disturbing and perplexing conversations with her newfound imaginary playmate, who seems to be personified by the discarded teddy bear she found in the requisite spooky basement.
Complicating matters, the new step-mom in this family used to live in this very house. It was her childhood home. And Mom – played by DeWanda Wise, in a performance we might as well label the-only-good-thingabout-this-film, is beginning to experience flashbacks to her own time in this place, when some nameless terror seemed to rise up and wreck her life.
Look, most modern-day horror movies, especially the ones that show up with little fanfare and are only pausing in cinemas on their way to a streaming service, are pretty nakedly assembled out of bits and ideas from better films. But Imaginary is taking the recycling ethos to new level.
There’s the daughter-with-theimaginary-friend bit, which has been doing the rounds since The Exorcist at least, and probably longer. And then there’s the mom-remembers-this-used-to-happen-toher schtick, which last got a really decent outing in Hereditary, but which has also been turning up for decades.
And then there’s the – mild spoiler – kids’-fantasy-world-might-actually-bereal flex, which gives Imaginary a kind of Stranger-Things-by-Pams charm which I actually enjoyed for a while. At least until the giant animatronic teddy bear with the bloodstained fangs showed up, at which point I was too busy laughing out loud to think much at all.
Imaginary is an assemblage of ideas, held together by pretty ropey staging and shameless contrivances. When the plot needs explaining, there’s a conveniently garrulous and deranged neighbour on hand to do just that.
In one nice nod at film history, Gloriathe-neighbour is played by the wonderful Betty Buckley, who was Miss Collins the teacher in the original 1976 Carrie.
There was potential here, maybe, for a film that delivered a contemporary spin on ideas that underpinned The Labyrinth and El Orfanato, or even Get Out and Us.
Or, Imaginary could have really pushed the boat out, and tried to come up with a twist we haven’t seen a million times before. But writer and director Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2) has settled for a by-thenumbers exercise at best. For a film called Imaginary, a little more evidence of actual imagination would have been welcome.
Imaginary is screening in cinemas nationwide.