Good movie 🍿 not scary lol but good 👍🏾

Watched *Imaginary* purely because I’m a sucker for creepy childhood premise stuff—even if it’s the 100th “scary imaginary friend” movie. Sadly, this one barely tries. The acting? Oof. Everyone feels like they're in a different, much worse movie—except the little girl, who somehow holds the whole mess together. It’s painfully boring, the scares are nonexistent, and the pacing drags like it forgot it was a horror film. The story *could’ve* been cool, but the execution is so lazy it feels like a first draft that got accidentally released. Wasted potential wrapped in yawns. 1.5 stars for the concept... and the kid.

This one had a lot of potential, and there are definitely things it does well. The core idea-a childhood imaginary friend turning sinister-is actually creepy, and the film plays with that concept in some fun ways. There are some solid visuals and a few moments that really worked for me. The performances are fine, and I liked that it tried to explore childhood trauma and repressed memories, even if it didn't go as deep as it could have. The design of the creature was neat, too-more creepy and sad than outright terrifying, which was kind of refreshing. But the film plays it pretty safe. It feels more like a PG-13 horror than something that really pushes the envelope. A lot of the scares are telegraphed, and the ending doesn't really land. You can kind of see where it's going early on, and it never really swerves from that path. Still, for a casual watch, it's not bad. Probably a decent gateway horror for younger viewers or those who don't like super intense stuff. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

Dumb, unscary, and lacking many things that might have helped it from becoming it's own trashy nightmare, also a pretty basic horror movie.

Genuinely underrated movie. Especially if you had an imaginary friend of your own, or four.

Dream sequence to start? Check.
Dad leaves halfway through? Check.
Little kid is an absolute idiot? Check.
Threatening to show really messed-up violent images then never actually showing them? Check.
Ending fakeout? Check.
Mysterious incidental character turns out to be a lunatic? Check. Yeah you don’t need to see it.

Agreeably a solid concept upfront with effective chills from its own imagination that surpasses many horror flicks, but the recognized trope within anchored it down into familiar realms and disbeliefs with unceremonious conclusion that conceptually lingers to certify its dimensional tale. (B-)

I wish I could imagine I didn't see this movie the final act was awful

Película de 3 pesos

Boring and rubbish. This movie was not scary at all.

Fairly underwhelming and not that spooky, Imaginary has a great hook and plot, but a terrible script and worse direction from the always not-so-good Jeff Wadlow. It has some fun visuals though, and DeWanda Wise does her best.

It’s not as bad as everyone says it is but for a movie that has the word “Imaginary” it’s very boring

This was not theatrical quality. I support studios putting these low-budget horrors in theatres in order to save the theatrical experience, but these movies are not worth the ticket prices to me. I enjoyed it on my sofa. And I enjoyed it barely.

Um filme de terror bem mais leve, e isso não é ruim. Apesar de seus erros e clichês, continua sendo um bom filme. A tensão é boa em ALGUMAS cenas, igual os pequenos sustos que existem, ALGUNS são muito bem executados. Os protagonistas, funcionam. A principal, "Jéssica" é uma personagem legalzinha e que funciona na trama. A garota mais nova (Pyper Brun) é de longe a que mais brilha em tela. É bom demais o que ela consegue entregar. A mais velha, ruim e totalmente descartável. O casal principal do filme (DeWanda Wise e Tom Payne, "Jéssica" e "Max" tem uma química bem boa. É um casal bom. A ameaça principal, o nosso "Brinquedo Diabólico", acaba sim funcionando bem, apesar das INÚMERAS limitações. Fora o design da versão final da criatura, que é extremamente bem feito. Principalmente na mistura de efeitos práticos com o CGI. É um bom filme de terror. Eu gostei muito e acho que vale a recomendação. N: 6.

Well, interesting idea. Like the original thinking, but it fall if completely in the end. Not really scary , but for teenagers on weed will be great

Imaginary, like Night Swim (2024) before it, had the advantage of being a Blumhouse movie advertised during the theatrical run of Five Nights at Freddy's (2023). It's trailer was only properly rolled out during the tail end of that run, but it got a lot of exposure, and it had longer theatrical trailers post-Night Swim in late January. I noticed when the trailer for Imaginary played before any of these movies there was no reaction from people sitting around me, no matter how many times it played. Likewise, it seems like since the movie has come out, absolutely no reaction has come out of anybody. I've inadvertently gone into Blumhouse movies in the past knowing little to nothing about them. With Night Swim it was due to inventive marketing that piqued my interest. For Imaginary, it was just because there was no audience response at all. I was massively surprised when five whole days after the movie released in the UK, my screening was pretty much half full. Maybe more! It was welcome. I've noticed before that there is a worrying trend with Blumhouse movies in recent years which boils down to their pacing. Exorcist: Believer (2023) was mainly second act, and Night Swim (2024) lost itself very easily around two thirds in too. I was interested to see how Imaginary would get on and continue this trend. I'm pleased to report that Imaginary has a full three acts of equal length. In this case, the act composition is okay, but the content within the acts is a bit wrong. 'Imaginary' follows a mother and stepdaughter Alice who move back into the mother's childhood home. Alice finds an old stuffed bear and grows attached to it, playing games that slowly get more and more sinister. Mainly, the movie massively takes a curve for the entirety of the third act. There's a little exposition dump, but even then, they pace it out and you can take everything in comfortably on the first watch. The movie also has the unique feature of knowing when to remove characters when they're not needed so the story isn't juggling too many elements. They have a reasonable excuse for the father to leave for the majority of the movie and return when he does. It works, it helps, it's great, and the focus is dispersed in the father's absence in a beautiful way that just flows well. Blumhouse is still very much in their 'Five Nights at Freddy's mode.' M3GAN (2023) was a 'testing water' movie in terms of storytelling with animatronics and robot children, two elements of FNAF, and now Imaginary is a story with a paranormal bear and a music box. Not so subtle, not a problem. They need that mindset now. Being able to finally read the reviews, it's clear the movie has been ostracized for stating clearly that imaginary friends are spirits. They come from a spirit realm and try to bring people there. The mum character's old 'imaginary friend' stayed in their childhood house and then connected with the new young stepdaughter protagonist. Stating this clearly is actually a good thing in my opinion. It made the space to explain more complicated elements in more detail. Much needed. Even the one nagging plothole I had lingering in the back of my mind for most of the movie got smoothed out by the end, and that's the kind of clarity and reassurance that not every modern Blumhouse movie can provide. With a budget of only $12 million, it's well put together and genuinely kept me wondering what could happen next. I hate to see so many people being hard on this movie. In general, very very good. I'm surprised. Some movies just get a bad response right away for no genuine main reason, and this is one of those movies. It was healthy for Blumhouse with some good twists that even got me. Good stuff.

Imaginary is an okay horror movie... Blumhouse movies can certainly be very hit and miss. It does benefit from a decent premise and a creepy atmosphere, with some good scares, and overall, the acting is fairly good. All aspects considered, there are certainly worse horror movies out there and this movie moves along at a decent pace.

Too careful and deliberate as it plods and makes mountains of mole hills in an attempt to facilitate the few moments of creepy that are all it really has going for it... in the first half. The second half is much more palatable and offers a few sparks as is it resembles a sorta cross between The Babadook, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and generic imaginary-friend horror (two out of three ain’t bad.) The ending was okay. For me, the biggest fault of Imaginary was too much faking out of the audience.

Had some high expectations for this. It was okay, but really not the best.

My middle schooler watched this at a sleepover, which pretty much typifies this film's target audience. It's a gateway horror film, introducing the kids to scary movies, but starting them out with something not too scary. A mother returns to her childhood home when her daughter begins talking to an imaginary friend who tells her to do increasingly sinister and dangerous things. Is the girl losing her mind, or is something supernatural going on? IMAGINARY doesn't let that mystery last long and quickly lets the audience know something supernatural is happening when the mom's old babysitter, the great Betty Buckley (CARRIE, EIGHT IS ENOUGH), provides hints about what's going on. Had the film left things more ambiguous as to what's happening, that would have been a more interesting and unsettling of film, such as Jennifer Kent's far superior film, THE BABADOOK. However, as I said before, this film is clearly targeted at the same tween audience who ate up M3GAN, which was just as slickly made as this film and equally as forgettable. IMAGINARY isn't a bad film, and it achieves what it sets out to accomplish, but it could have been a much more interesting and scary of film had it targeted a more adult audience.