I think we as horror fans have to find a new name for this genre. Is it Fuzzy Horror? Perhaps Tween Terrors? How about Fluffy Frights or Goosebumps Horror? Whatever we call them one thing they have to do is stop recycling. Imaginary salvages so many tropes and tricks from far better supernatural Asian horror movies that it just becomes mish-mash of stunts and jump scares that we have seen so many times before that they no longer have any impact on us regular horror fans. The only people Imaginary would actually scare or creep out are non-horror fans or kids 12 and under. Production-wise there is absolutely nothing original or fresh at all about Imaginary but then again paint-by-numbers director Jeff Wadlow (Fantasy Island, Kick Ass 2) is at the helm so we should expect cookie cutter cinema and that’s what we get.
DeWanda Wise is one of the bright spots in this film as Jessica, an artist who returns to her childhood home to find the usual American supernatural horror film creepy crap that has been so done to death. Jessica’s partner is Waterloo Road and The Walking Dead’s Tom Payne as Max. Max is a musician and has two children from a previous relationship: always curious youngster Alice (Pyper Braun) and rebellious teen Taylor (Taegen Burns). Jessica is at that awkward phase with the kids where she is tap-dancing between wannabe friend, surrogate mom and total stranger. Her relationship with Taylor is especially tense and rocky despite Jessica trying her best to connect with her on some, any kind of level.
Alice finds a discarded teddy bear in the basement she names Chauncey and he becomes her friend as he navigates a new home, new school and new neighborhood. Although he doesn’t exactly become Chucky mirroring another Blumhouse Goosebumps Horror dud in Megan, his discovery does usher in supernatural forces that eventually cause the film to go off the rails crashlanding in WTFville. Like the vastly superior Five Nights at Freddy’s the monsters, creatures may be a little bizarre but they are not scary or creepy. In fact they are downright goofy as if our heroes were being haunted and stalked by Muppets.
Like the aforementioned Megan, if you are an adult, if you are a dedicated horror fan, you won’t even flinch during Imaginary. Not only should you be immune to those lazy kind of jump scares by now but you shouldn’t be phased at all by a drooling Fozzy Bear with goofy big teeth as this new entry in Goosebumps Horror is strictly for the kids.
Watch on: In theatres, On Demand.
ROMI’s main premise is nothing new. It has been done so many times before like the films Margaux, Tau and Dream House but we have never seen it done this well. ROMI is never silly or stupid and that’s because the filmmakers tread very carefully and very cleverly when they bring modern technology and the supernatural together. Also, Alexa Barajas (Teen Mari in YellowJackets and Ultraviolet in The Flash) carries the film so well that you would never know this is her first leading role in a feature film.
As Maddie, Barajas is in a bit of a jam. After committing a hit and run she is banished “off the grid” by her politician mom (Shannon Leahy) for her own good. The police don’t have any suspects or even any witnesses yet so mom wants Maddie to just lay low until the heat dies down. Mom places Maddie under “house arrest” in a smart home owned by the eccentric Hertig (Pavel Kríz). ROMI (voiced by Jocelyn Chugg) is the home’s AI, digital assistant, maid. ROMI can brew you a cup of coffee, lock the house down and even test your urine for drugs, health concerns, if you wish. Maddie is alone much of the time. The only other person besides Hertig she occasionally bumps into is Barkley (Juan Riedinger). He’s a tech wiz Hertig hired to install, program and work out any of ROMI’s glitches.
Riedinger and Hertig play their roles so well that they will have you guessing as to their true motives and intensions when things start getting really weird for Maddie, as you just knew they were going to eventually. Maddie’s experiences begin to fray her nerves but it is ROMI, Barkley, Hertig or is it her own anxiety, guilty conscience that are chipping away at her very sanity? ROMI doesn’t try to push the boundaries of reality too much or overplay its hand and that is why it works probably better than any similar films that came before it.
Watch on: Tubi
Frankenstein: Legacy is one of those films that will pleasantly surprise you. There hasn’t been much hype surrounding it but there should be. The story alone is quite intriguing. Taking place shortly after Shelly’s literary masterpiece, Dr. Frankenstein’s Arctic chase of his creature has ended in tragedy. The journal which contains all of his research has been stolen and sold to the highest bidder. By hook, by crook and murder the journal changes hands again and again in a cool little sequence until it lands in those of scientist Millicent (the brilliant Juliet Aubrey). Her hubby Robert (Waterloo Road’s Philip Martin Brown) is dying and Millicent sees Frankenstein’s research as a way of saving, preserving his life.
Even under the constraints of the film’s budget and with no lines to speak of, Philip Martin Brown does a magnificent job as the Creature. The Creature itself is a blend of what you have seen in previous films and in stage adaptions which stick closer to Shelly’s creature as opposed to the characterizations we’ve seen on the big screen.
BTW: If you can ever check out the 2011 Royal National Theatre adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller swapped playing the roles of Victor Frankenstein and his creature, please do so. You will be glad that you did. Their rendition is one of the very best. Cumberbatch and Miller also played Sherlock Holmes in two distinctly different versions of the character for television in BBC’s Sherlock and Elementary on CBS.
Legacy’s Creature could have used a bit more movie magic to make him look far more imposing especially compared to some of the other characters he is supposed to be lording over but Brown deftly jumps between being a threatening beast and a sympathetic being who never asked to be reborn, he himself is a victim of sorts. The ending is more than a little bit harried and seems rushed in places but Frankenstein: Legacy is certainly a worthy chapter in the Frankenstein film library.
Watch on: On Demand, Prime Video.
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