In March we will have the latest horror film from Blumhouse, which of course leaves no doubt about its ability to work in this genre. Starting from the Paranormal Activity saga, Get Out, Us, the Insidious saga, Happy Death Day 1-2 or most recently M3gan .
Now in its latest film, Blumhouse presents Imagine. This film is directed by Jeff Wadlow, who previously worked on Kick-Ass 2 (2013) and Truth or Dare (2018). When released in the US, the film received many negative reviews from critics. But is this movie still worth watching? Salenhanh will review it below.
Summary of the movie Imaginary (2024)
Jessica (DeWanda Wise) marries musician Max (Tom Payne), and then lives with Max’s two children from a previous marriage, Taylor (Taegen Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun). In everyday life, Jessica often has nightmares about her fictional spider character Simon.
Ultimately, Max decides to move into Jessica’s childhood home so he won’t have nightmares anymore. However, Alice apparently found a teddy bear in the basement that she named Chauncey.
Alice quickly forms a bond with Chauncey. She even talks to Chauncey every day, who eventually becomes her imaginary friend. Jessica initially let this happen, until one day she discovered something strange about Alice while writing Chauncey’s request.
Jessica’s former nanny from when she was a child, Gloria (Betty Buckley), apparently lives not far from their home, and although Jessica doesn’t remember her childhood, Gloria does share memories of her childhood. by Jessica to remind her that Jessica has the same imaginary friend. appearance.
From then on, Jessica is gradually able to remember her imaginary friend Chauncey, who is now with Alice! Can Jessica save Alice from Chauncey?
Imaginary movie reviews
Interesting premise with many surprises in it
Since the previous poster debuted on January 17, 2024, Salenhanh immediately assumed that this film would be inspired by Poltergeist released in 1982.
It turns out that the visual similarity in the poster was actually noticed when the film was shown at a media screening last week. Fantasy includes some classic horror movie elements in it, including those mentioned above, and these references are mainly to 80s movies.
What’s nice about this movie is that the pacing isn’t too fast, so we can still watch how these characters develop chemistry with each other, focusing of course on the main character, Jessica.
This movie starts to get interesting after the 15 minute mark, when conflict begins to arise as Jessica and her family move into her childhood home. The conflict between him and his two stepchildren is truly not harmonious, especially Taylor, who hopes for the return of his biological mother more than his stepmother.
Jessica’s busy life as an illustrator also means she cannot take full care of Alice. And that’s when the main problem begins to arise through the teddy bear that Alice found in the basement.
A series of surprises begin to appear, such as Alice starting to be alone when she finds the teddy bear and having a different voice when Alice talks to the doll. However, the most epic turning point happened when Dr. Soto (Veronica Falcon) comes to the house to observe Alice.
From the recording, Jessica began to clearly recall each period of her childhood, plus stories from her former nanny. It turns out that Chauncey the teddy bear is the meaning of this movie’s title that Wadlow wanted to say. What does it mean? Let’s see what it means.
Conclusion about the movie Imaginary
The imagination turns out to be satisfactory and relatively balanced if we look at it from many perspectives. The storytelling is good, not too fast, there are some flashbacks explaining Jessica’s past so we have a deeper understanding of Chauncey’s background.
DeWanda Wise and Pyper Braun’s performances as Jessica and Alice are very good, their dialogue and chemistry make them blend well together in this movie. Taegen Burns performed quite well and had significant development from the series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (2021-2022) that he previously played.
The character of Chauncey himself may not have been well developed, as after the second half, the teddy bear’s appearance instead appears as a large bear whose silhouette can only be seen.
Although the ending reminds us of Insidious, this does not matter too much, and in this room we can still be entertained through some scares and the eerie atmosphere that has been built right away from the beginning.