Release date: March 8, 2024 (USA)

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Distributed by: Lionsgate, Lionsgate Films

Budget: $10–12 million

Music by: Sparks & Shadows

Production companies: Blumhouse Productions; Tower of Babble

Despite seeing a trailer for IF first, Imaginary was released this month to a fairly quite response. Now think back to January when I mentioned my hopes for Night Swim and I’ll recap those thoughts here.

I’m hopeful that once Black Phone 2 releases we get to understand what Universal is attempting with this horror verse their cooking up. Imaginary would be a great fit and a helpful boost for Night Swim if connected with 5 Nights at Freddy’s along with M3gan etc.

Possibly going in with low expectations from review scores, but I had a pretty good time in this one. I enjoyed the characters and was curious of the plot threads moving the feature forward. It’s not an overly long film but does attempt to throw in some twists and reveals for those invested.

A slight weakening towards the end and overall feature wrap up with repeated content from their competitor studio films. I enjoyed getting to know this family. Somethings that pulled me out at first was the cheap or poor “monsters/creatures” which didn’t feel scary or create tension when on screen.

The ending scenes were probably the weakest in my opinion with quick out of nowhere resolutions and “bow ties” to the story but I’m hopeful this goes somewhere within a horror verse….and please no sequel. Having a universe for the horror franchises will be fun to create a combination original movie using material from these mid movies to hopefully get something truly epic.

I can hope can’t I? Haha with that being said I felt this movie is a 6/10 putting it slightly above Night Swim as this movie actually has some enjoyable content that could bloom into something sinister with some extra cooking.

“Side note I looked up Sinister as this title was in my mind almost the whole movie” – If that interest you, then do yourself a favor and watch Imaginary. If my hopes come true then let’s discuss this movie in the comments as I could see this being my most favorite movie of all time if a potential sequel or sequel verse movie came from these foundations.