Imaginary (Jeff Wadlow, 2024)
Imaginary is an American horror film about an evil teddybear. Sounds like fun, right?
Directed by Jeff Wadlow (Truth or Dare), from a script he wrote with Greg Erb, Bryce McGuire and Jason Oremland, Imaginary tells the story of thirty-something Jessica (DeWanda Wise), who returns to her childhood home with her new family: husband Max (Tom Payne) and his two daughters from a previous marriage.
Jessica tries hard to be a perfect stepmother, but teen Taylor (Taegen Burns) is obnoxious to her, while young Alice (Pyper Braun) is just sad and lonely.
But when Alice finds a teddybear waiting for her in the basement, she seems to perk up, calling her new found friend Chuc… no, sorry, Chauncey.
I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to tell you that, like Chucky in his evil doll movies, there is more to Chauncey than meets the eye. The supernatural element is the whole point of the story.
Acting wise, the movie is fine. Pyper Braun is a talent to watch, while DeWanda Wise has some great scenes as the troubled Jessica.
Overall, it’s a highly competent production. It’s not as inventive as M3gan, nor does it benefit from IP recognition like last year’s mega-successful Five Nights at Freddy’s, but it does sport the customary Blumhouse trademark of some decent scares on a reasonably priced budget.
The problem for me, however, is that the plot is relatively weak and hinges too much on the idea that Jessica is too traumatized by things that happened in her own past to correctly see that what’s going on with her daughter in the present.
Also, the fact that she is called ‘Alice’ frankly gives away that at some point the characters will enter some kind of (evil) Wonderland.
Visually, at least, that last part of the film is the most interesting, and some sequences are truly mesmerizing, but with a more fully realized screenplay the still pretty decent Imaginary could have been an even better movie.
Note: Imaginary is released into theaters this week in most countries, with others like Spain and Germany following next week.