Dog’s Movie House: “Imaginary” Has Interesting Idea, Few Scares!

“Imaginary” has an interesting premise in its concept of imaginary friends having a real basis in a spiritual realm, but it never really delves into that mythology, instead explaining in a series of exposition dumps by the local expert/nutjob lady named Gloria (Betty Buckley.) The film’s director, Jeff Wadlow (who also had a hand in writing the script) gets a lot of mileage out of eerie shots of the teddy bear Chauncy appearing an disappearing at random, freaking everyone out with those cold black eyes. His true form is meant to be terrifying, but Wadlow and his scenarists keep him in the dark to the point that he’s difficult to see most of the time. It’s a shame because some of the design features look pretty good during the brief glimpses of him.

The cast is game enough, with Wise fully committing to the role, bringing Jessica’s inner trauma to the fore and bringing a believable sense of exasperation to her relationshp with Taylor. Burns as Taylor operates in one-note bitchy teenager mode for the most part, which makes it hard to like her, but she warms up a bit over the last third of the film. Young Pyper Braun is actually quite good as little Alice as she has the toughest role of voicing not only the young child, but providing a voice to the malevolent Chauncy. Payne’s Max disappears a third of the way into the movie and is never seen again, and Buckley is hamstrung by a script that doesn’t know whether to make Gloria a wise sage or a batcrap crazy old woman.

The climax of the film moves into more supernatural territory and will be familiar to anyone who’s seen “Poltergeist,” “Smile” or “Hellraiser.” Despite the visuals, the climax lacks any real bite and the reaction seen most by this reviewer as the patrons left the theater was an overwhelming sense of “meh.” Take that for what you will. “Imaginary” is not awful, but it could use a lot more, ahem, imagination! 2 1/2 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

Pages: 1 2