Review:
Right up until "Imaginary" started, I half-thought I was pressing Play on the John Krasinski movie "If." I never watched the trailers for either film, so it wasn't at the front of my mind that "If," which also involves make-believe friends, is actually a family-friendly fantasy with cartoonish CGI creations, not a formulaic fright flick from Blumhouse.
At first, I worried these blurred lines might be a sign that I'm not quite as clued into what's happening in horror as I thought. Upon reconsidering, I instead reasoned that my idle conflation says more about how unnoticeable "Imaginary" is because it never blipped bright enough to remain on my radar. I also wished I really was watching "If," because a Ryan Reynolds-led comedy couldn't possibly be more derivative than "Imaginary," a movie that answers the question no one asked, what if the overdone trope of a child meeting an imaginary friend who predictably turns out to be an evil entity was needlessly stretched into a 100-minute feature?
"Imaginary" starts out exactly like every other vanilla thriller built from a boilerplate frame: with a dream sequence that gets things going using a monster-induced jump scare since it'll be another half-hour at best before something scary happens again. This recurring nightmare has plagued Jessica Barnes for years. Having a vivid imagination helped Jess become a successful children's book author/illustrator. It also makes it harder for her to repress the trauma of growing up with a father whose mind went mad when she was only a child.
Dear old dad is on his way to assisted living, so Jessica's husband Max suggests moving back to her childhood home earlier than planned since Jess always called it her "happy place," despite the house being associated with her mother's death, father's dementia, and a horribly harrowing experience she conveniently won't remember until later. Not that you could, but don't get attached to Max. Perhaps the only dusty cliche "Imaginary" doesn't recycle is making Max a traditional "disbelieving spouse" who dismisses odd events as "all in your head." That's because Max drops out of the film at the 30-minute mark to go on tour with his unseen band, rendering him a completely inconsequential character.
Max's abrupt departure shouldn't come as a surprise. His only purpose is to set up Jessica as a stepmother to his two daughters from a previous marriage. Once that's done, he's out. Everything everyone does in the movie is solely in service to the plot. "Imaginary" has zero need for anyone who isn't immediately useful in the current scene. It's like none of the characters existed before the story started, and all of them will evaporate the instant end credits roll.
Everything everyone says is also strictly reserved for exposition. People speak in lines like "My grandma, who I moved in with after my mommy died," and "Well, you were only five when you left," delivering backstory bits via detail-specific dialogue no human being would ever utter in real life. There's even an entire character, the usual "Old Person Who Knows the Dark Secret" chestnut, with no nobler a function than filling in remaining blanks two-thirds of the way through.
Getting back to Jessica's stepdaughters, one of them is 15-year-old Taylor. The other is Taylor's younger sister Alice. Based on how her stereotype plays out in every similar cinematic situation, do you think Taylor is a pouty teenager who's upset about having to leave her friends and move into a new home for the sake of a stepmother she refuses to get along with, or does she take it all in stride with a smile? How about Alice? Is she a sweet and innocent little girl no normal person would want to see bad things happen to, or does "Imaginary" dare to do something different with her?
The answers should be obvious since "Imaginary" doesn't have an original bone in its boring body. Even the toy housing Alice's malevolent play pal looks like a plain teddy bear, with no attempt at all made to create a memorable look capable of haunting anyone's head.
From its standard start to its flaccid finish, and through all of the redundant routine in between, "Imaginary" feels like filler for padding out Pluto TV's free-to-stream library, no better, but possibly worse, than its pedestrian peers in the "adult protects child from supernatural something-or-other" subgenre. It's a small mercy that the movie will be forgotten faster than kids forget their own fictional inventions the second something better comes along. And it really should only take a second.
Review Score: 30