While watching Imaginary, one thing is guaranteed: you’ll imagine you were watching a better movie. 

A tediously generic horror flick that wastes its premise, Imaginary ironically lacks imagination: there’s absolutely nothing clever (or fun) to see here. Directed by Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2), the movie is your typical stupid-little-girl-makes-friends-with-a-malevolent-force story, stuffed with lame dream sequences, momentary glimpses of creatures, and bland, direct-for-hire execution. Imaginary pretty much lacks any attempts to frighten the audience, let alone to sustain a sense of dread or suspense.

The writing doesn’t help. Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who have mainly written what appears to be crappy and unpopular children’s fare (their sole “quality” credit is for The Princess and the Frog), are odd choices to script a horror film, and it shows. The plotting is bland, the dialogue half-terrible, and the overall thing feels like it was written by people who didn’t try very hard to make a legit horror movie.

The writing drags the acting down too. While lead protagonist DeWanda Wise is decent and 17-year-old Taegen Burns shines, the performances generally range from subpar to laughably bad, making the overall experience even worse. 

As a film critic, you know a movie is bad when you start writing the movie review in your head before the damn thing is even over. Imaginary is dreadfully boring–Wadlow seems more interested in setting the scene than actually frightening the shit out of the poor unfortunate souls who opt to pay for his piece of crap. Too bad the pay-off is so bad; the climax is an utterly miserable experience, an eye-rolling and flat 20-minute stretch that is not nearly as imaginative as you can tell the filmmakers thought it was.

Here’s a suggestion: when considering watching Imaginary, imagine yourself watching something else. And then bring your imagination to life.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.