Every so often, Hollywood churns out unconnected movies based on similar premises. Thus 2024 brought two films about imaginary friends.

John Krasinski’s family-friendly IF offered the more commercial of the two, though it failed to find the hoped-for mass audience. The more horror-oriented Imaginary struck first.

As a child, Jessica (Rhythm Hurd) lived with her family in Louisiana and maintained an “imaginary friend” she called Chauncey. Now part of a family with husband Max (Tom Payne) and stepdaughters Taylor (Taegen Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun), adult Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back to her original home.

Before long, however, Jessica learns Chauncey wasn’t imaginary after all. Angry that she abandoned him years ago, Chauncey brings terror to the household.

In theory, at least. In reality, Imaginary becomes just another trite horror tale.

Even with the coincidental release of the similarly-themed IF, I do feel Imaginary offers a plot with potential. The notion of the fantasy friend taps into memories almost all share, and it becomes a clever notion for a scary movie.

However, the film needs to actually deliver fright for it to succeed. In that realm, Imaginary falters.

Nary a moment of actual terror emerges in this flaccid flick. Indeed, virtually all attempts to deliver a story along those lines flop, as we get more unintentional comedy than scares.

Despite the inherent positives of the concept, Imaginary leans so heavily on cheap tropes that it just turns silly. Nothing surprisingly occurs and the elements that should create fear instead feel contrived and ridiculous.

The story also churns out too many narrative clichés, most of which relate to trite melodrama related to the struggles of a blended family. We also get a nosy neighbor (Betty Buckley) who exists solely as a repository for backstory and exposition.

The biggest flaw I find here stems less from the lack of scares and more from the basic laziness on display. Those behind Imaginary clearly figured the semi-clever premise would do all the work for them.

As such, the end product fails to find anything novel or creative to carry its 104 minutes. Instead, Imaginary feels cobbled together from other – better – movies and never emerges as anything interesting in its own right.

Imaginary appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This was a positive presentation.

Sharpness looked solid. A few shots were slightly soft, but not to a substantial degree, so most of the movie seemed accurate and concise.

No jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws were a non-factor, as the movie stayed clean.

We found a palette that favored amber/orange, with the usual blue along for the scary scenes. Within their generally dingy parameters, the colors appeared solid.

Blacks seemed deep and tight, while shadows were smooth and well-delineated. In the end, the transfer proved to be appealing.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, I also felt positive about the pretty good Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Imaginary. Given the nature of the story, moody environmental information dominated the mix.

These elements filled out the speakers in a fairly involving manner. The movie didn’t become a constant whiz-bang soundfield, but it created a decent sense of place.

The more active “scare moments” used the spectrum in the most dynamic manner, but they failed to appear on a frequent basis. Instead, music and moody ambience became the most prominent components.

Audio quality was fine, as speech seemed natural and concise. Effects depicted the elements with acceptable accuracy and boasted pleasing low-end when necessary.

Music showed positive clarity and range, and they also packed solid bass response at times. This was a perfectly positive mix for the material.

When we shift to extras, we get an audio commentary from writer/director Jeff Wadlow and actor DeWanda Wise. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets, locations and visual design, various effects, deleted/alternate scenes, and connected domains.

This turns into a fairly informative chat. Despite more than a few dollops of the usual happy talk, we get enough worthwhile material to make this a pretty good discussion.

Under Exploring the Never Ever, we get four featurettes with a total running time of 18 minutes, 53 seconds. Across these, we hear from Wadlow, Wise, producer Jason Blum, costume designer Eulyn Collette Hufkie, line producers Paige Pemberton and Paul B. Uddo, puppet supervisor Mark Viniello, fabricator/puppeteer Claire Frewin, mechanical designer Richard Landon, production designer Meghan Rogers, and actors Betty Buckley, Pyper Braun, Taegan Burns, Samuel Salary, Tom Payne, Dane DiLiegro, and Michael Bekemeier.

“Ever” looks at the premise and story/characters, costumes, various effects and set design. After a slow first segment, the featurettes bring us some good info.

A second disc offers a DVD copy of Imaginary. It provides the same extras as the Blu-ray.

Given a fairly intriguing premise, I hoped Imaginary would provide a better than average horror flick. Instead, it fails to explore its concept in a creative manner and becomes another predictable and tedious attempt at scares. The Blu-ray comes with positive picture and audio as well as a few bonus materials. Don’t expect much from this forgettable project.