The “M3GAN” vibes are robust within the newest “Imaginary” trailer footage, particularly the opening industrial for the movie’s haunted plaything, Chauncey the Bear™. Not that one can blame Blumhouse for hoping lightning will strike once more after Gerard Johnstone’s 2023 sci-fi-horror hit gave it a flowery new feather so as to add to its cap. What’s extra, this preview is unashamedly desperate to remind everybody of all the good work that administrators who’re not named Jeff Wadlow have completed for Blumhouse up to now, together with “The Invisible Man” helmer Leigh Whannell and “The Black Cellphone” filmmaker Scott Derrickson. “From the man who gave you ‘Reality or Dare’ and that ‘Fantasy Island’ reboot you have virtually undoubtedly forgotten exists” simply would not have the identical ring, does it?
Wadlow’s filmography is not all misses, admittedly (choose members of the /Movie workforce are prepared and keen to defend “Cry_Wolf”), so it is potential “Imaginary” could but shock us. Failing that, it seems Wadlow and his co-writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland have primarily given us a grislier re-imagining of the Disney Channel Unique Film “Do not Look Beneath the Mattress,” which is actually not a sentence I anticipated writing after I awoke this morning.
“Imaginary” opens in theaters on March 8, 2024. Its synopsis reads as follows:
When Jessica (DeWanda Smart) strikes again into her childhood residence along with her household, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds within the basement. Alice begins enjoying video games with Chauncey that start playful and change into more and more sinister. As Alice’s habits turns into increasingly regarding, Jessica intervenes solely to comprehend Chauncey is way more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.