Jeff Wadlow’s “Imaginary” isn’t trying to hide its inspirations. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of cinema’s influential movies will be able to spot the film’s multitude of references. For some, this may seem ironically un-imaginative, but we need to remember that imagination isn’t simply a brand-new idea built entirely out of whole cloth.
Stories build upon other stories, and so if you can set aside the expectation that “Imaginary” aims for anything radically different then you can settle into a surprisingly solid, date-night horror film with a thoughtful subtext beneath its creepy stuffed animal avatar. “Imaginary” may not reinvent horror, but it knows how to conjure up a good time.