OVER ITS TENURE, Blumhouse has terrified us with everything from invisible men to possessed dolls. A film about a sinister imaginary friend, therefore, seemed inevitable. Cue Imaginary, Jeff Wadlow’s new horror about Chauncey, a teddy bear-shaped menace, and Jessica (DeWanda Wise), its former owner, who discovers upon returning to her childhood home that her old companion now prefers causing pain to throwing picnics.
Wadlow draws some connections between this film and his 2005 directorial debut Cry Wolf, about a group of double-crossing high-schoolers and a serial killer. “I’ve always been fascinated with subjectivity in filmmaking and storytelling, and how you can make the audience complicit with a lie,” he tells Empire. In Imaginary’s case, you’re strung along by the sinister Chauncey, who leads Jessica’s stepdaughter deeper into an increasingly violent game in the name of friendship. Rusty nails make a cameo.
The traumatising ted proved the missing piece when developing the film, as Wadlow and writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland struggled to put a face to their “evil imaginary friend” concept. In this raggedy brown bear, a star was born. “[The film] started to really come to life because we had our iconography,” Wadlow explains. “It also helped us to understand [what we were] exploring. We’re exploring imagination, trauma and self-delusion.”