Imaginary

Director: Jeff Wadlow
Starring: DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Betty Buckley, Tom Payne, Veronica Falcon, Matthew Sato
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 104 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2024
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Horror themes and coarse language

A woman returns to her childhood home to discover that the imaginary friend she left behind is very real and unhappy that she abandoned him.

Imaginary is a Blumhouse production. Over the past decade, horror aficionados have become alert to releases from Blumhouse. There have been many outstanding films, especially those from Jordan Peele ­– Get Out, Us, Nope… but, as always, there can be hit and miss.

Last year set quite a good record of horror/menace films which appealed to the general public, especially Thanksgiving, Five Nights at Freddie’s. With the animal creatures at Freddie’s, there was some high expectations for Imaginary with its innocent-looking but threatening teddy bear, Chauncey.

It all opens well enough with a nightmarish sequence and a ghoulish monster. But, it is a nightmare that has pervaded the dreams for decades for Jessica (Wise) who writes and illustrates children storybooks. Then, for quite a while, we settle into nice domesticity, Jessica has married British Max (Payne) and Jessica is struggling with being stepmother to Max’s two daughters, the passive-aggressive teenager Taylor (Burns) and the more friend Alice (Braun).

Then we are invited to explore Jessica’s past – her leaving home at age 5, always drawing and imaginative, the mysterious sacrifices by her father who is now in aged care. And a basement full of boxes and memories, and Alice finding the teddy bear whom she names Chauncey.

So far, so quiet, horror aficionados chomping at the bit – when is it going to get scary? What about the horror?

Peaceful life begins to go awry when Alice is seen playing a game with a list of things to be done, including some that would hurt herself. And, it begins. Alice and Jessica playing games, Taylor angrily self-absorbed, Max away on business, and Alice disappearing.

Then there is an encounter with a neighbour, Jessica’s former babysitter. There are memories of the mysterious past, devoting her life to writing self-published explorations of menace and evil. Is she a kind old lady? Will she try to help solve the puzzles?

Depending on your point of view on this kind of horror/menace film, there might be enough imagination in the parallels made between Alice and Jessica’s own childhood, the imaginary toy, the bear, but leading into parallel worlds. But, for those who have been patient with the domestic story, and those rabid for action, the rest of the story definitely enters the world of the imagination, an alternate world full of mystery and menace, and a (far too realistic-looking?) devouring monster.

For audiences who think this is all a bit much, not necessarily all comprehensible, sometimes evoking a laughter response rather than terror, a word that comes to mind while watching is that it is all becoming more and more preposterous.

The moral of the story, reinforced by the visiting psychologist and therapist, is to be wary of those who talk to, play with, or depend on imaginary friends.