Imaginary has fun set design but some serious pacing issues

Film review: Imaginary (15) – seen at The Light Cinema, Wisbech

Starring: DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns and Pyper Braun

Director: Jeff Wadlow Run time: One hour, 44 minutes

If you’ve ever seen a Blumhouse film before then you probably know what you are in for with Imaginary.

The film has quite a strong premise: what if a child’s imaginary friend, in this case a stuffed bear, wasn’t so imaginary? But, while that idea is strong, when it comes to execution it doesn’t go quite as far.

The acting throughout the film is mostly good but sometimes the script writing is a bit off, and it results in the dialogue sounding rather unnatural at points, sometimes in moments that we are supposed to take seriously.

On top of this the movie has some pacing issues in the first two thirds as not a lot seems to happen and it quite frankly fails to produce much tension or many scares at all.

The set design was fun and there were some interesting monster creations using animatronics and puppets to pull of a rather convincing practical effect which is nice to see, as well as some campy acting and finally some tension and scares which is what people want to see from a horror film.

Overall, this movie might be worth a watch for those who are fans of the genre if you don’t expect too much from it. It’s reasonably fun romp especially after the seriousness of films recently just after Oscar season.

By Alfie Ransome

Rating: 5/10