We’ve all had imaginary friends, right? Well, probably not ones like Chauncey! Take a look at the Imaginary trailer here.
Jason Blum’s horror studio Blumhouse have been raking in the profits with Five Nights At Freddy’s, which has exceeded all expectations when it comes to dominating the box office. Horror has always been a particularly profitable genre and Blumhouse are now looking for an early 2024 hit with Imaginary.
Take a look at the first, spooky trailer below.
Starring Jurassic World: Dominion’s DeWanda Wise, Imaginary asks the terrifying question: are our imaginary friends just imaginary, or something a little more sinister? Maybe they murder people. Wouldn’t that be positively ghoulish?
Wise plays Jessica, who moves her family to her childhood home. Jessica’s stepdaughter Alice finds a talking teddy bear in the basement named Chauncey. Chauncey makes her do things, including showing a nail in her arm. That’s usually a bad sign.
Here’s the official synopsis: “From Blumhouse, the genre-defining masterminds behind Five Nights at Freddy’s and M3GAN, comes an original horror that taps into the innocence of imaginary friends – and begs the question: are they really figments of childhood imagination or is something more terrifying lying just beneath?
When Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister.
As Alice’s behaviour becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realise Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.”
Fantasy Island director Jeff Wadlow is on directing and co-writing duties with help from Greg Erb & Jason Oremland on the script. Tom Payne, Taegan Burns, Pyper Braun, with Veronica Falcon, and Betty Buckley star alongwise Wise.
Imaginary doesn’t look quite as campy as Blumhouse’s other hit, M3GAN, but it does bear a slight resemblance to Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman, which also placed children at the heart of the horror. As Five Nights At Freddy’s director Emma Tammi noted in our interview with her, there’s so much potential in catering to a younger audience with horror films.
Our takeaway from the Imaginary trailer is, never trust teddy bears you find in basements. They’re bad news. Imaginary hits UK cinemas 8 March 2024, courtesy of Lionsgate.
