Imaginary (2024), directed by Jeff Wadlow, stars DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Betty Buckley, Tom Payne, Veronica Falcon, Samuel Salary, and Matthew Sato. The film follows Jessica (Wise), a woman who moves back into her childhood home along with her husband, Max (Payne), and two stepdaughters: Taylor (Burns) and the youngest, Alice (Braun). When Alice finds an old teddy bear in the home’s basement, she begins referring to it as her imaginary friend, Chauncey. What starts as a harmless relationship soon goes south when Chauncey begins pushing Alice to perform darker and darker acts. When a former babysitter (Buckley) informs Jessica of her own traumatic past involving an imaginary friend, it becomes clear that Chauncey may be more real than any of them could have imagined. 

The cast here across the board is pretty flat. It also doesn’t help that the script/dialogue is often laughably bad with some scenes feeling almost improvised. On top of that, Taegan Burns’ Taylor is written to be one of the most insufferable characters I’ve seen in a long time. She’s immediately framed as the typical “ungrateful teenager” archetype, but none of her angst is justified. Jessica is only framed to be understanding and caring toward her, but she continually acts like a brat. When the script randomly asks the audience to begin rooting for her in the second half, it’s frustrating and ineffective. As for young Pyper Braun as Alice, I think she delivers a certain level of adorable fun, but because of this is never once scary/intimidating. Scenes with her that are meant to be scary mostly just result in laughter. The script also gives these characters absolutely zero consistency from moment to moment. They’ll randomly make decisions that go against everything they were previously set up to be simply so the script can reach its next unoriginal set piece. Rounding it all out, the husband character played by Tom Payne disappears halfway through the film for seemingly no reason just to reappear before the credits role. Scheduling conflict? To put it plainly, the characters here stink. 

Although the film has a somewhat interesting premise for a horror movie, it’s a painfully unscary effort with a script whose IQ tops out at 20. It spends a ridiculous amount of time following the characters slowly walking around their house in silence – predictably leading to a generic jump scare. The tension-building sucks and the eventual payoffs suck, so it just ends up feeling like you’re watching paint dry. 

The only thing that is somewhat enjoyable here is the fact that the film seems to be occasionally self-aware about how bad it is. That being said, it doesn’t lean into this self-awareness enough that I would recommend it as a “so bad, it’s good” experience. For the most part, the enjoyment comes from laughing at the movie as opposed to laughing along with it. 

Overall, this is one of Blumhouse’s weaker horror efforts and makes the audience wonder why they keep giving director Jeff Wadlow jobs. It’s filled with cliche after cliche and features some of the worst characters of the year. It’s also a tonal disaster that can’t decide if it wants to play things straight or be somewhat self-aware. In a packed year for the horror genre, this easily stands out as one of its worst films. F