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.

Paranormal Activity - Next Of Kin

Unfound Footage

Paranormal Activity -
Next Of Kin
USA 2021
Directed by William Eubank
Blumhouse

Paranormal Activity - Next Of Kin is, allegedly, the seventh in the much loved Paranormal Activity franchise (well, eight if you count the original sequel, Paranormal Activity 2 - Tokyo Night, which I still haven’t been able to find with English subtitles anywhere so I can watch the thing). Now I know it’s bad to write a review of a film right after you’ve been hugely let down by it so I went away and digested what I’d seen, along with a meal, before sitting down to write this one up.

For the record, I love this franchise and I had a blast with absolutely all of them apart from the fifth in the series, The Marked Ones (reviewed here). That one was absolutely terrible because the main protagonists were all unlikeable thugs who you were just hoping would die and drop out of the movie... although even that one had its uses in that it established the concept, which they really ran with the in the brilliant sixth movie, Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension (reviewed here), of the fact that Toby, the demon who is being raised by the coven of witches, could also travel in time.

Well, despite my obvious issues with that terrible fifth entry in the series I’m here to tell you that, Paranormal Activity - Next Of Kin is... way worse than that one was. I mean, it’s not really a terrible movie in and of itself and, frankly, it has some intense and effective jump scares at some points but, honestly, why did they even try and pretend this is a Paranormal Activity film?

It took maybe no more than two minutes to get me really angry and, I have to say, even though I saw it a few hours ago now, my blood is still boiling on this one. Around about two minutes in, the formerly first person POV camera, which is the way these things fake the feel of found footage, is suddenly enhanced with maybe as much as two seconds of a shot of the guy on the camera so we can see what he looks like. Really? There’s no other camera trained on him... it just throws in this kind of ‘character establishing shot’ to, I dunno, enhance the feel? Then, maybe five minutes in after the main protagonists of the movie, played by Emily Bader, Roland Buck III and Dan Lippert get into a van, the camera shows a series of top down shots, looking at the vehicle as it wends its way through the countryside from various viewpoints... even going so far as to add some music. I mean... what the f***!

I recently saw a pseudo found footage movie called The Deep House (reviewed here) which took a similarly blasé approach in the way it was drip feeding in obvious third person viewpoints into the picture but I cut it some slack because it wasn’t actually claiming to be a found footage movie and, also, it didn’t have the weight of the legacy of six successful ‘found footage phenomenon’ films behind it. And I’m sorry but, the same can’t be said of Paranormal Activity - Next Of Kin by a long chalk.
Various other ways it destroys any credibility it was trying for and abandoning any pretension that it’s continuing the ‘found footage theme’, while obviously still trying to fool the slower witted in the audience that it actually is, are numerous and equally offensive. And, yes, I just went on Twitter (probably months before this post got published) and it obviously did somehow fool the less discerning element of its core audience because one guy was tweeting that the film has nothing to do with the other movies with the only similarity being that it’s found footage. Nope... wrong! It's not POV at all. How can you miss this stuff?

So, yeah, the film does have some intense scare moments  to shred your nerves but it’s almost like its fighting against itself to try and guarantee the audience is popped out of the experience. For example, some scary moments towards the end of the movie are actually scored with some kind of musical stingers. I mean, I was almost got caught up in the moment until they did that. And they also have some slow motion shots in the movie which they try and explain away by showing how the camera can also capture slow motion so that, when an intense scene like someone getting his throat torn out comes up, they can linger on it in slow motion... totally pulling you out of the movie again. Why they try and justify it as an ‘in camera’ trick is anybody’s guess because, from many times earlier in the film... the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.

Another thing is the use of masks in the film. It’s set during the coronavirus pandemic but the characters in the restaurant at the start aren’t wearing masks. Fair enough, maybe they’re a ‘bubble’ but when they go out into the parking lot to meet a stranger, including hugging etc, there are still no masks or social distancing. And then, almost as an afterthought, the characters slip their Covid masks on and they all get into the car... where they all take their masks off for some reason and that’s the last we see of masks in the movie, I think. This seems particularly stupid and, I guess in a way, explains how the movie is populated with protagonists who decide to pursue the most stupid, life threatening options available to them... instead of retreating. I guess if they’re stupid enough to ignore the Covid then they’re stupid enough to somehow position themselves into the perilous situations they end up in.

Lastly, I was watching hard but I couldn’t find any way in which this one relates to any of the previous Paranormal Activity movies. There’s no mention of Toby, nor any of the human companions or victims he’s been around. I was hoping, since the previous movie in the series had given him a human form to inhabit the terrestrial world in, that this one would be a continuation of the concept. But no, this one is nothing to do with the previous story arc and it’s just another in a list of things of which I can’t forgive the movie for.

And I don’t want to dwell on it by writing anymore about it either. Paranormal Activity - Next Of Kin is well acted, has some intense scenes and scares and is, frankly, absolutely nothing to do with the other parts of the franchise. It’s a blatant money grab and this series should have been treated better... especially with the original director on board as producer. If you’re into horror movies, have not seen any of the previous Paranormal Activity films and are not invested with the film actually following the, really not so hard to follow conventions of the ‘found footage’ genre, then you will possibly have a good time with this. For everyone else I would say, stay away from this one. It’s a heartbreaking and disrespectful piece of fluff.