Imaginary

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.

LIKES:

Decent Pace -Imaginary is a movie that keeps consistent in keeping the story moving with minimum divergence to complicate matters.

-Approximately ten minutes in, the mischief and intrigue start, doing their best to keep things engaging for the two hours.

• A faster pacing allowed the movie to feel less sluggish, which made it more enjoyable for me.

Okay Acting -The movie is a far cry from the best acting category, but that does not mean it's the worst performance group in the industry.

• I enjoyed Pyper Braun's acting merits to many levels as she captured a girl caught between traumatic sessions and finding a means to cope. Her voice work holds borderline creepy elements, and she displays terror and hurt to a believable level that helps capture that sincerity.

-Burns' acting is a step up from her Mighty Ducks days, going from pre-tween diva to moody teenager. Stumbling a bit in her transitions, she manages to pull some better acting skills in the final act that is promising for future roles once she masters it.

-Yet, DeWanda Wise is the best actress in this movie for me, displaying touching moments of connection and balanced emotion that provided a better character.

-She may have gotten a bit overdramatic at times, and there were some ill-presented lines, but they were (mostly) kept in check for this movie despite the corny writing Funny -Whether intentional or not, the movie ends up having very humorous moments that left me chuckling or laughing at loud.

-Chauncey's games and taunts are very childlike, but then receive an adult twist that spices things up and adds extra laugh power.

-Or perhaps you'll just find the looks of the monsters to be laughable as well, many of them a parody that reflects what imagination can craft when at a young age.

-If that's not enough, then there are always the toned-down lines, forced emotion, and overacted character qualities that may get a rise out of you.

Creative Starts To Creepiness: -Horror movies thrive on a lot of presentation styles to create that lasting feeling of terror.

-Imaginary takes some of the playbook tricks and manages to nudge them to an original setup that shows promise for a memorable bout of terror.

-When you have an imaginary friend, the sky is the limit for ways to open up putting our "heroes" in peril, and there were times I was impressed with the start of the scare and how creative they got.

Heartfelt Moments: -Like many movies in this genre, Imaginary's characters have to address some things in their past to recover and thrive in the future.

-Two character arcs in particular had moments that I resonated with, fantastic presentations of the trauma, combined with authentic portrayals of the hurt they can bring.

-One moment was fantastic for me, as they used the scene in many ways that helped maximize the impact of that story for me. Its design answered a few gaping questions while also helping forge a stronger bond between two characters that struck me deeply.

-Moments like these are the best part of the movie given the purpose it brings to the film alongside crafting characters to invest my time into watching.

DISLIKES

Overdramatic Plot: -The movie tries to give more to the story than other horror films though, something I appreciate very much in a very expansive genre.

-This story does have elements that work well with the drama and horror elements and help enrich the characters past the usual fodder status that is seen.

-However, the movie tends to waver to the more CW-esque drama patterns, becoming more about over-expression than an engaging plot.

-When the predictability component factors in, the plot only weakened further for me, which inflated the dramatic flair for me.

Too Silly For Its Own Good -Granting a PG-13 rating is a double-edged sword for a movie in my experience.

-For Imaginary, I think the rating dulled the film, allowing for too much silliness that got in the way of the horror elements.

-Between the comical displays of the bad guys and ludicrous secondary characters, there were too many interruptions that diluted what I came to the movie to see.

-Dialog and acting further added to the silliness and resulted in dulling the movie down to a censored version of a concept that could have gone much further.

-Factor in the overdramatic limitation, Imagination then starts to move into an area where the cuteness becomes a bit distracting and annoying. This feeling seems to be a big part of what has lowered the ratings and perhaps might be too much comedy for its good.

Too Many Plot Elements -A minor dislike of this movie, Imaginary tries to take on a lot of things in a short amount of time.

-I think it handled it, okay. Some elements accomplished the goal of diving into the psyche of the main character and connecting these broken pieces to make a fulfilling character arc.

-However, another plot felt half-baked, the little girl's story holding some details that were intriguing, but were utilized as plot devices to bridge the main story. A shame given how many elements were tied to this girl that actually could have included other characters in the picture.

-And in the case of the teenager, she felt like an accessory designed to pull in the loose ends and shakily glue them together in a menagerie that didn't quite come together for me.

-The end product is manageable but falls short of what BlumHouse has put out in the past, and not even the campiness elevates the limitations.

Lack Of Suspense/Thrills/Scares -Horror movies are all about the scares or thrills for most of the entries in the genre.

-In this movie, I felt that only about ten percent of the movie had traces of these elements for me to enjoy and contrasted the trailer's promises.

-Chauncey can be creepy at times. The way those eyes stare and the looming shadowy presence are a few examples of a horror element done right for me.

-But it never elevates much past that, often delivering lackluster jump scares or comical moments that were supposed to be scary.

-Once the turn in direction took place, the nightmare moments practically evaporated, and now starting to approach Tim Burton's styles of design. -This style does have its disturbing factor to it but Imaginary didn't take it that level and pulled punches that again were more humorous than terrifying.

-The most disappointing element was the revelation of the monster's true form. Chauncey takes several uncomfortable transformations, but upon showing his true face, I wasn't impressed with the final result, especially at him doing very little despite the powers he possessed.

The VERDICT: Imaginary is a movie that held a lot of potential for me when I watched the trailers. Sadly, only a little bit of this potential was achieved for me in this viewing. The acting is fine and creates some engaging character moments that work well with the PG-13 rating. It has a story with some unique elements and some potential creative setups for scares, while also not treading too far into disturbing levels. There is an atmosphere of comedy embedded that at times brought out a laugh or two in me. However, the movie does not finish any of these elements strongly and struggles to keep the balance between fright and fun just right. The result becomes a mundane film that could be a beginner-level horror movie that only stands out in a few spots as the creepy piece it aspired to be. I can't recommend this movie for a theater showing, instead looking to a night at home as your venue of choice. Who knows, being at home might enhance the scare factor a bit.

My scores for the film are: Horror/Mystery/Thriller: 5.5 Movie Overall: 5.0.

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.

Okay. Bear with me here.

If you love "horror" movies where a child all by her lonesome descends stairs into a dark and dirty cellar where creepy noises emanate from, why, oh who cares if no kid would ever do this in like, ever.

If you get creeped out by a Swifty taking a selfie and in the background of that photo, yikes! Lookout! There's some old lady neighbor photobombing, and she's got to be at least in her sixties!

Terrifying!

The acting and writing are tiresome and totally unbelievable. Not only do they not seem like a family, they don't even seem like they know each other at all.

And lastly, if sitting in on child psychology sessions is your bag, get ready to fill that bag full with this film.

This movie should be Teddy Ruxspin spinning out of control.

That's what we're all here for.

But it's not. And never is.

The entire movies plods along at a 3 until the end.

The end is just okay.

Influences of the art of M. C. Escher and much better 1990's horror flicks.

And Betty Buckley. She's always great. But here there's no eight, and she's just not enough.

Not to save this.

That makes this movie a tad more bearable at 4 stars.

I don't know that anything could convince me that AI wasn't heavily involved with writing this. It's offensively bad. It's a boring concept, the bear is the least threatening thing I've ever seen, the plot barely exists, and it's way too long. I'd call it comically bad, but that would imply a "so bad it's good" sort of movie. It's almost insulting that Blumhouse is able to get away with making movies like this into a full theatrical release.

I hate this movie and everything that it represents. This is the laziest, most boring thing I've seen in ages, and there are people somewhere in Hollywood making millions of of it. Bleh.