In horror philosophy, two questions have plagued us for ages now. Which came first: the Halloween Horror Nights attraction for the Blumhouse movie, or the actual script? And is it bad that I sense it’s the former? Despite its pervasive online ad campaign, the actual premise of Blumhouse’s newest venture Imaginary may have eluded you, so here’s a quick catch up. The film follows Jessica, a children’s author and artist whose life seems to be turning up sunny from her gloomy past.
She’s married, has two new stepchildren, and is moving back into her childhood home. But when her new stepdaughter Alice comes up with an imaginary friend, Chauncey the Bear, Jessica slowly starts to remember the real circumstances that tore her out of the house and away from her family, and rediscovers what really lured her back there decades later.
A Halloween Horror Nights House Gone Big Screen
But what is Imaginary really? What is its voice as a film? If the surface level is to be believed, Imaginary wants to pull on horror wellsprings you remember for inspiration and find a place among the memorable supernatural franchises of the 2010s. And it might just be one of the more memorable Blumhouse films I’ve seen recently, but for all the wrong reasons.
It’s the Wish Upon kind of reason, if you haven’t guessed by now. Fans of Wish Upon need to see this.
There are references (because it never detaches itself far enough to feel like an homage) to Insidious, IT, Coraline at one point, and The Conjuring movies throughout— come to think of it, it would be harder to find modern horror movies this doesn’t have a link to, since it seems to have assimilated a lot of other films cultural DNA wholesale, like The Blob smushing over a pedestrian and sucking it up into its gooey center. Imaginary ends up being less than the sum of its parts though, because it seemingly doesn’t know how to use what its absorbed. And in a way, it uses them so poorly it ends up being a masterpiece of errors.
Outside of its abnormally great opening scene, the movie is a perfect synthesis of having all the ingredients for a cake and somehow coming out with a giant, misshapen, burnt scone. Its dialogue is chewy and overcooked, with exposition filled lines that smell like a strong distrust of the audience’s intelligence. Characters state things we have clearly seen mere seconds ago, and by the fourth or so time it happened I had to relinquish myself and let it absorb me. Its attempts at humor are perplexing at points, and it even manages to sucker punch you once in a while with a line baffling enough to steal laughs unintentionally. It misses so many shots that ricochet back into being entertaining that you can’t help but have fun with it, and I even started to wonder if it was somehow intentional. The laughter in the theatre was admittedly kind of contagious on my screening’s part, so it helped.
Good Performances Bogged Down By Everything Else
Keep in mind, I don’t think anyone here is a bad actor. DeWanda Wise is clearly talented, and even has a few standout moments where she nails the role; she absolutely nails it as a classic horror movie mom, trying to endear herself to two kids who have just only begun to escape a pretty messed up home life. But everybody in this film is let down by its script, which paints all the characters into little archetypal boxes we’ve seen before, and then flanderizes those same archetypes.
Carrie star Betty Buckley gives the film’s crown jewel performance when it comes to this. She has been gifted the role of “creepy side character who is secretly an occult expert” and wears the part like a glove. She gets to chew the scenery so much with her final act monologue that it’s like watching a zebra carcass get ripped apart by a pride of lions in their prime (which is a visual far gorier than anything we get in this movie, kills-wise, if you’re expecting anything other than a CGI puddle of blood then expect less). I’m wholly convinced she knew what she was given was bad and made the best of the situation; bravo to her for the 180-degree turn in how enjoyable she made it.
The monster designs and costumes used in this movie are quite good, but extremely underutilized, especially when there are as many jumpscares as there are here. The film’s climax contains a predictable if not respectable twist, one that is immediately reversed with an even more predictable and not at all respectable rugpull. And for the last thirty minutes, everybody seated for this film poured out into the halls of my local theatre with chatter and laughs.
Like burnt baked goods, there’s always someone out there willing to eat this. And I strongly feel that Imaginary’s failures make it a perfect feast for the so-bad-it’s-good crowd. It’s uber-camp, whether it’s intended to be or not, and it needs to be appreciated for its one strength. It’s cheesy, it’s deeply flawed, and if that’s not your thing, measure your expectations going into the theatre this weekend. But it is absolutely worth watching if you are delighted by schlocky horror movies and can see this with some friends. Happy watching, bad horror fans!
