Imaginary (2024)

Blumhouse's latest act of terrorism against the horror genre, "Imaginary" is ostensibly a movie about a killer teddy bear -- in the vein of "M3GAN" -- but ultimately becomes a fifteenth-rate knock-off of "Coraline" and "Insidious". The killer teddy bear in question, Chauncey, is actually sidelined in pursuit of a derivative plot that finds Jessica (DeWanda Wise) trying to save her stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) from supernatural forces with links to her family's tragic past.

To call this movie boring would be an understatement, and the dullness isn't alleviated by the cast, especially lead DeWanda Wise, who gives a disinterested performance that recalls Rooney Mara in 2010's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" more than it could ever hope to recall Allison Williams' brilliant turn in the superficially similar "M3GAN". Maybe more killer bear action would have helped, although it's worth pointing out that when Chauncey's monstrous form does interact with the human characters, whatever threat he's meant to pose is negated by the clear and apparent fact that he's a limited animatronic prop incapable of actual menace. A more talented team of filmmakers might have been able to paper over the cracks on that one, but alas. This is a horrible horrible movie that represents everything wrong with wishy-washy, watered-down modern horror. Complete with insufferably dark cinematography and messy writing, this has to go down as pure crap.