Imaginary

Imaginary Fiend

Imaginary
Directed by Jeff Wadlow
USA
2024 Blumhouse
UK Cinema Print

Okay, so the latest from successful horror movie company Blumhouse is Imaginary and, I have to say, I really quite liked this one. I’d also have to say that I don’t think it’s going to be that successful with some audiences but, hopefully I’ll be proven wrong on that.

The film stars DeWanda Wise as Jessica, step mother to two new children (played by Taegen Burns and Pyper Braun) who, with their father, moves back to her former home where, it turns out, she had a definite ‘childhood trauma’ event... though she certainly didn’t remember just what that was all about until something laying in wait reminds her. And when her boyfriend goes away on a concert tour (he’s presumably in a band) she’s left to look after the two girls, the youngest of whom has taken an ‘imaginary friend’, who takes the form of an old Teddy bear named Chancey.

And then things start going wrong and getting traumatic as Chancey isn’t ‘just’ an imaginary friend and, as it turns out, has his own agenda to abscond with the younger daughter, for reasons (perhaps way too obvious reasons) which come to light nearer the end of the movie.

Okay, so let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. There are no real surprises a lot of the time but, that being said, there are a couple. A lot of the stuff is telegraphed way too soon, such as Jessica’s dad, when he visits her in hospital, talking about CB... I was just kinda waiting for an hour for everyone else in the movie to play catch up on that one.

And another problem is that the film suffers a little bit from is the dreaded curse of most modern day horror films... sound design that lets you know things are about to get tense and scary long before you’re supposed to realise this stuff on anything other than a subconscious level. So as soon as the ambient sound changes, you are on the alert right away. Don’t get me wrong, I think you are supposed to be unsettled by this audio phenomenon... I just don’t think your brain is meant to be aware of it while you are watching. So, yeah, that element, which is the modern cinematic equivalent of an old 1970s horror movie using a heartbeat on the soundtrack, kinda lets it down a bit. However, that being said, the sound cliché also happens to absolutely work... so you may know why you are feeling unsettled in certain scenes but, dammit, knowing it doesn’t make it any less effective, for sure.

Now I said that half the twists in the film don’t work and are telegraphed but, guess what? Yeah, that means the other half of the twists did actually work well. The director actually uses things like the bear appearing in different positions and beginning to move a little as a really nice piece of misdirection for a certain twist that is revealed when a child psychiatrist comes to visit the younger daughter. I really fell for that one hook, line and sinker so... yeah, this film sure has its moments. And I loved that the film goes full on into creating a surrealist world which the main characters get to visit... the element which I think may be too much for certain ‘hip’ young audiences who are, of course, the main target here. But I loved that the movie leaned into this surreal stuff for the end game and I found it refreshing, to be honest.

And now, I suppose, I should address the elephant in the room because, there’s a reason I went to the cinema to see this one. And that reason was... Mario Bava. There’s a moment, right at the end of one of the trailers, which it turns out also made the final cut of the movie, that is a dead steal of a famous moment in Mario Bava’s 1977 movie Schock. In that film, a kid rushes towards Dario Nicolodi and, runs off the bottom of the screen only to pop back up immediately into the frame as a different, grown up person. It’s a beautiful shot using a practical piece of sleight of hand with the photography to pull off the effect (something which Mario Bava was known for when making his movies). And it really is a complete copy of that moment used in this movie... I mean, it’s not as deftly done because, due to the subject matter, the shot has to use a lot of CGI but, it does deliberately echo the camera movement from Bava’s movie and, yeah, I’m sure the director knew exactly what he was doing here. It’s a nice piece of homage which, I think they should have left out of the trailer because... well... now the audience will see it coming.

Other than that... not much else to report. The score of the movie is nice and it’s credited to Sparks & Shadows... which is a company formed by Bear McCreary (one of my favourite modern day composers) so I’m guessing the score is a group effort by him and some of his colleagues/friends/apprentices. I’d love to hear this one away from the movie but, no such luck as it doesn’t seem to have had a proper CD release... so I guess I won’t get to listen to it, which is a shame.

Other than that, though... yeah, Imaginary is nicely acted, well put together, could have had more surprises but still, it’s nicely done and I could imagine picking up a Blu Ray of this one at some point. Like I said though, I suspect it’s not going to be as well received by everyone so... time will tell, I guess.