Imaginary

Family moves to creepy house; a young child has paranormal experiences; a moody teen does moody teen things; not all the adults are what they seem; a character finds repressed memories are dragged up; yada, yada, yada.

It's not quite bad, but it certainly isn't good. There's a bit of Poltergeist, a bit of Nightmare on Elm Street, a bit of Labyrinth - and it's unclear whether this is meant as an homage-melange, or a pilfering of tropes from a variety of better films.

The film relies heavily on jump-scares, but there's little sense of terror. The twists can be seen coming a mile away. The ending is frankly lazy.

The cast do their best. Young Pyper Braun is good as the girl at the centre of things, DeWanda Wise OK as the step-mother trying to penetrate the mystery. The rest are either under-used or let down by a thin script and unimaginative direction (or both).

The special effects budget was clearly painfully small, and no-one was able to anything convincing or scary with it.

Not a film that will live long in the memory.

Really terrible on all fronts from the acting, shoddy editing, weird production design and bad writing. I used to have so much respect for Dewanda Wise but this movie made her look really bad. Felt like she just showed up and learned her lines that morning, random emotional scenes that felt out of place and acting on par with melodramatic lifetime movies. There was zero chemistry between all the actors. Worst casting was the father who kept falling in and out of his accent from American to Australian. I did not buy him as a father at all, and the age difference did not feel authentic. Dewanda just felt like she was showing up for her check, she needs to fire her agent. The cinematography felt too much like a TV movie with special effects that looked like a 90's Disney film like "Don't Look Under the Bed." I got whiplash from the dark scenes transitioning straight to bright sunlight. The film was laughably bad, I'm shocked it made it into theaters. There was not a single good performance in this film. Teenagers in the theatre kept chatting and playing on their phones and laughing, which tells me even more that nobody was invested in this mediocre film.

I didn't buy for a second that any of the characters ever cared about one another. Teenage daughter was a clichè stereotype I've seen so many times, nothing fresh or intriguing. I did not buy for a second Dewanda cared about those kids and there was zero chemistry akin to actors talking to a pillow because nothing genuine bounced between them. Just flat and forced emotion that was never earned.

Ironically, I feel like the movie lacked some imaginative ideas for a movie like this. Also, is it me or is nothing actually that scary anymore? The actors weren't bad, they would only act out what's in front of them but I liked the idea of this movie a lot but not what was delivered, sadly. Also, I didn't see any need for the husband to even be in the movie, that felt like a pointless character to be trimmed out. Additionally, there is always the same kind of family dynamics in these movies with a miserable angsty teenager etc, would have been cool to make the movie stand out and not always follow the samey blueprint.

3 out of 5 stars.

Imaginary is a fair supernatural horror film with a concept about children's imaginary friends becoming some evil entity in a spirit world. Its a bit of poltergeist like film. The film has some cheesy dialogue and it lacks the scares and horror. Which it could have added jump scares and be a little intense to make this film worthy.

The plot follows Jessica (DeWanda Wise) as she and her new family with her step children move into her old childhood home. After a tragedy happened with her and her father at the house that left her dad speechless and traumatized. Her step daughter Alice comes across a teddy bear which she makes out to be an imaginary friend which becomes very sinister.

The cast ensemble was okay. The story was decent. The script was a bit cheesy with the dialogue. And the direction with Jeff Wadlow has been lacking with providing any scares or intensity. Yes the characters come across something evil and the way it was filmed. It failed to even put you on the edge of your seat. Interesting concept but failed to execute the scares.

Overall, it was an okay film that failed to deliver on scares and thrills.

It's just not scary. The cast aren't convincing enough, obviously not used to acting in a horror film. The storyline is confused in itself and doesn't know which direction to go in. Make up is so amateur; you can see the plastic on faces.

The actors just seem to go through the motions. They don't give any impression that they are being pursued by the 'Entity', do not show any fear in their faces.

The script seems to have stolen plots from 'Poltergeist' and 'The Conjuring'. But it just doesn't work. There are so many holes in the plot. Where was the girls father? Why didn't the mum ring him and tell him what was happening? Why wasn't the little girl showing any signs of being frightened?

Don't waste your time. Or your money.