‘Imaginary’ Review — Evil teddy bear movie is both inane and insane

A review of the new horror movie, in theaters now

Let’s get this out of the way up top: Imaginary is pretty bad. It’s full of nonsensical line readings, characters with inexplicable motivations, characters who over-explain their motivations, jump scares that barely count as startles, and some of the most obvious foreshadowing I’ve seen since a character looked at the wall while talking about their son who’s “still with us” at the beginning of creepy-doll movie The Boy.

After the twist is revealed, though, there’s still a significant chunk of the movie left. Imaginary goes completely and gleefully off the rails, taking a hard left turn into some delightfully imaginative stupidity. What begins as boring and predictable becomes something far sillier, and there are lots of pleasures to be found in this movie’s third act… for those willing to wait for them.

At the beginning of the film, we meet a children’s book artist named Jessica (DeWanda Wise) and her new husband Max (Tom Payne). Jessica’s been having nightmares that seem to be set in her childhood home, so to help her sleep better, Jessica and Max decide to move into their new home — Jessica’s childhood home. After all, it was her “happy place.” How will moving into her childhood home stop the…