Richard Crouse

As the title “Imaginary” suggests, the new Blumhouse horror film, now playing in theatres, is all about the power of imagination. Strange then, that so little imagination went into the story.

DeWanda Wise stars as Jessica, children’s book author and artist of the “Molly the Milliped” series and stepmom to preteen Alice (Pyper Braun) and fifteen-year-old Taylor (Taegen Burns). Jess and new husband Max (Tom Payne) are on “operation relocation,” moving into the house she grew up after her father is sent to a long-term care facility.

Jess has happy memories of living there, but may be looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. “No child should ever have to go through what you did,” says Gloria (Betty Buckley), an elderly neighbor who used to babysit Jess.

Soon, Alice hears voices coming from the basement. She investigates and finds Chauncey, a harmless looking, oversized Teddy Bear who becomes her constant companion.

“I found someone else to play with,” she says when Jess suggests they do something together.

Alice and the bear have long conversations, have pretend tea parties and Chauncey even creates a scavenger hunt, so Alice can show him how brave she is. If she completes it, they’ll go together on a trip to where Chauncey came from.

“Nobody loves Alice except for Chauncey,” he says.

As Jess, Taylor and the nosey neighbor do a deep dive into Alice and Chauncey’s imaginary world, the trauma of the past becomes the key that unlocks the secrets of the present.

The PG-13 rated “Imaginary” feels like a reworked “insidious” with less atmosphere and a new, cuddlier malevolent entity. A few twists cut through, providing some grabby moments in a movie that doesn’t deliver the promised scares.

Wise hands in a sturdy performance and Braun does a pretty good creepy kid voice as she utters some of Chauncey’s lines, but none of that matters much by the time the complicated, incomprehensible supernatural stuff really kicks in.

It’s “Insidious” lite, a revamped mythology about the rage unleashed when a friendship bond is broken. Not only do the main players immediately buy into the loopy rationalization for the “Twilight Zonesque” goings-on, but poor Buckley is saddled with the unenviable task of delivering horror movie balderdash about just how imaginary Alice’s new friend really is. The reliance on exposition over scares in the film’s final third blunts the effectiveness of those scenes.

In its examination of childhood trauma and unresolved issues from the past, “Imaginary” has the elements of a good horror film but isn’t imaginative enough to do anything really new.