While I will never retract my belief that horror is saving cinema, it’s also not infallible. There are bound to be duds in the process.
Imaginary is one of those duds, which sucks because I do think the bear is really cute. If you ever what would have happened if Lotso from Toy Story 3 had supernatural powers, you might enjoy this movie because that’s basically the whole set up. Spoilers ahead.
When Jessica, a children’s author, moves back to her childhood home with her new husband and step children, the youngest daughter Alice finds a teddy bear named Chauncey to whom she grows attached. However, things begin to become disturbing as Alice starts to demonstrate disturbing behavior (scaring her friends, hurting herself), which concerns Jessica. Like every horror movie before them, the dad is away on business when all of this shit starts going down, so the new step mom has to step up. It turns out, according to her elderly neighbor that used to babysit Jessica, that Jessica used to play with Chauncey, which she has no memory of, and apparently only Jessica and Chauncey can see the bear as he’s her imaginary friend.
It only gets more convoluted from here.
So apparently, since he’s an imaginary friend, he tried to take Jessica to another dimension called Never Ever, but was saved by her dad who now lives in a mental institution (GEE, I WONDER WHY). Alice is kidnapped by Chauncey, which Jessica realizes is bait because, get this, imaginary friends are spirits who can grow warped and sad and angry if they are abandoned and Chauncey was mad he left her. Shenanigans ensue, twist villains are had, and the movie ends sort of similarly to Poltergeist and Coraline combined, which was honestly kind of cool but has been done before.
Side note, but why are imaginary friends never just the product of a child’s imagination? Sure, they’re weird, but come on, they can’t all be demented spirits. Like go make friends with other imaginary friends who have been abandoned. Get a grip, invisible force, and just be chill.
This movie, as noted, doesn’t do anything unique with the concept of children’s toys or imaginary friends. I honestly think a better exploration of this movie is the D-COM Don’t Look Under the Bed, which chronicles the horrifying journey of abandoned imaginary friends, and why it’s okay to be a kid while you have the chance. This movie just basically runs on the premise that imaginary friends could become evil if you leave them, so if you currently have an imaginary friend, break up with them as gently as possible.
Chauncey is cute enough, not their goal but worth noting, but he doesn’t really do anything except turn into a horrifying bear monster every once in awhile. The twist villain is so drastically forced in that I really couldn’t fathom how or why the writer’s thought it necessary. I know a lot of this film was cashing in on the fact that these same people brought us M3gan, but they seem to fail to understand the audience for both films could not be entirely different. Sure they like horror, but M3gan fans are the people who love Child’s Play or Scream, darkly comedic horror films that are playing with the genre and creating something silly but scary. The premise is close with Imaginary, what with Chauncey being a little stuffed bear, but gone is any sense of realism like in M3gan. We’re not dealing with robots here, but interdimensional travel, spirits, and a giant, vengeful spider that was so much like the ending of Coraline I was shocked they were able to release this. They even get to the dimension by going through a little door in the wall. I cannot make this up.
Imaginary brings nothing new to the horror genre, and it doesn’t do anything fun that we haven’t seen a hundred times already. The visuals are sort of fun but that’s about it, otherwise it’s all sort of a rehash of films that came before it. Especially with Abigail out in theatres, I can think of much better ways for you to spend your money.