Imaginary Ending Explained

Blumhouse’s horror film Imaginary has a simple premise that leads to a complex ending that answers multiple questions like Chauncey’s origins. Imaginary starts with young Jessica running through a door with her possessed father, following her and morphing into a spider. She wakes up from this nightmare and decides with her husband to move into her dad’s old home early with her stepdaughters, Alice and Taylor. At the house, Jessica and Alice play hide and seek. When searching in the basement, Alice finds Chauncey the Bear – a stuffed animal and her new imaginary friend. The two quickly become inseparable.

However, Jessica gets worried when she finds Alice’s scavenger hunt list with disturbing requests. After Alice tries to slam her hand into a rusty nail, Jessica brings in Alice’s child psychologist for a session. During this session, the psychologist hears what she thinks is Alice voicing Chauncey’s thoughts. When Alice turns, she’s not moving her mouth, though. The psychologist’s observation leads to the disturbing realization that Chauncey might not just be an imaginary friend. Jessica and Taylor venture into the imaginary world of Never-Ever to save Alice in a fast-paced ending that wraps up the storyline and relays important messages.

Do Jessica, Alice, And Taylor Escape Never-Ever In Imaginary?

At the end of Imaginary, Chauncey brings Alice into the world, Never-Ever. Jessica and Taylor follow her in with the help of Jessica’s old babysitter, Gloria. However, Gloria closes the only door in or out before getting killed by an imaginary friend. Luckily, Jessica figures out that imagination can form a new door, allowing Alice and Taylor to escape. This shows the power of the mind within Never-Ever. The imaginary friends can manipulate the environment and perception of reality, but so can humans.

Unfortunately, Jessica gets stuck inside, believing she got out. When she realizes and tries to escape, Chauncey attacks her. Fortunately, Taylor and Alice open the door between the real world and Never-Ever to get Jessica out, saving her before the imaginary friend can kill her. This part of the movie shows that these three need to trust and rely on each other, real people, in order to break free from Chauncey’s control.

Chauncey’s Origins in Imaginary Explained

Despite initial appearances, Alice’s imaginary friend Chauncey isn’t a teddy bear in Imaginary. The psychologist shows Jessica the recording of Alice’s therapy session, at which point Jessica realizes that she’s hallucinated the bear the entire time. When rewatching the video, she connects the fact that Chauncey was also her own imaginary friend as a child. This realization unravels a massive web of lore about imaginary friends.

In Imaginary, Chauncey and the other imaginary friends are spirits that come from a world of imagination called Never-Ever. They attach themselves to children at a young age, developing a close bond with them. While most children and spirits drift apart naturally, the spirits can become malicious when the relationship is severed by unnatural means. In the case of Jessica, Chauncey became obsessed with her after she was forced to move away from her home.

The Purpose of Alice’s Scavenger Hunt

During Imaginary, Alice starts playing a scavenger hunt game with Chauncey, saying that he’s giving her the list. Whenever someone expresses interest in the game, though, Alice says they aren’t allowed to play. However, her voice always has a tone of fear, which is explained when Jessica finds the full list. The scavenger hunt items include:

• Something happy
• A bowl
• A paintbrush
• Something that burns
• Something that scares the character
• Something that makes the character mad
• Something that hurts
• Something that would get the character in big trouble
• A lock of hair

The list builds up in severity and intensity because the ingredients are used in a magical ritual that’s meant to show the character’s devotion to Chauncey’s spirit. Someone can only open the door to Never-Ever with powerful displays of emotions in Imaginary. This is proven when Jessica tries to open the door, but her pain isn’t strong enough. She can only open the door after degrading Taylor, emotionally wounding the teenager.

Why Jessica’s Childhood Drawings Matter in Imaginary

When Jessica and her family move into her childhood home, Alice gets excited when looking at Jessica’s room. Drawings cover all the walls, though they’re faded. Despite seeing physical proof of her past, Jessica still can’t remember anything from this period of her childhood. Later in Imaginary, Jessica revisits the drawings to discover that they all involved a teddy bear and the name “Seebee,” her childhood shortened name for Chauncey Bear. This is the proof she needs to realize that Chauncey is a malicious spirit from her past, catalyzing her to look for Alice more frantically.

What Happened To Jessica’s Parents?

In this terrifying imaginary friend horror movie, Jessica reveals that she moved away from her parents’ home at a young age. When she visits her father in the assisted living home, it appears that he is paranoid and has memory issues, making it seem like he had a mental breakdown. Towards the end of the film, it’s revealed exactly what happened to both of her parents.

Jessica’s mom died of cancer, at which point the child grew closer to Chauncey. He coerced Jessica into doing the same ritual that Alice does in Imaginary’s present day, taking her into Never-Ever. Jessica’s father saves her from the imaginary world at the cost of his own mental stability. When he looks into Chauncey’s spirit’s eyes, he has a mental breakdown because his brain cannot handle the imaginations of all the children Chauncey ever tormented. Jessica’s dad shows the lengths to which a parent will go in order to protect their child’s wellbeing.

Imaginary’s Alice In Wonderland References Explained

Imaginary includes numerous Alice in Wonderland references that could seem random at first glance. However, these allusions exist because both stories examine just how real imagination can be for a child. Alice from Imaginary develops an emotional attachment to Chauncey, a supposedly thought-up character. Despite her intelligence, Alice’s immaturity shines through when she’s pressured to engage in activities that go against her morals and desires. This is extremely similar to Alice’s characterization in both Lewis Carroll’s story and Disney’s animated Alice In Wonderland. The characters become too invested in a fantasy at the expense of reality.

Unlike the happy children’s story, though, Imaginary takes childlike wonder and imagination to a much darker place. Both Chauncey and Never-Ever are real in the movie, unlike Wonderland in Lewis Carroll’s story. Additionally, while Never-Ever is beautiful for Alice, it’s a place of nightmares for anyone trying to interfere with Chauncey’s desires. Moreover, characters harmed in Never-Ever still have their injuries when re-entering the real world. These aspects set the two stories apart.

Imaginary Is A Long-Form Analogy For Childhood Trauma

Mental health is extremely important to the events of Blumhouse’s Imaginary. Jessica experiences distressing nightmares that influence her emotional state when she wakes up. Alice sees a child psychologist for her traumatic past with her mother. Alice and Taylor’s mother can’t visit the kids due to psychological instability. Jessica’s dad must stay in assisted living because they presume he had a mental break that caused his paranoia and delusions. However, the messages about mental health run much deeper. The entirety of Imaginary is a long-form analogy for the impact of childhood trauma on survivors.

Both Alice and young Jessica experience trauma at an extremely young age and go on to develop an unhealthy relationship with their imaginary friend, Chauncey. This malevolent spirit causes them to do unhealthy things that will cause emotional or physical harm to themselves. They become so engrossed in Chauncey that they distance themselves from their loved ones, keeping secrets. The young girls are willing to disappear from their family and friends to live with Chauncey in the Never-Ever. In this powerful metaphor, Chauncey represents the aftermath of childhood trauma, and Never-Ever represents a mental state of isolation and avoidance.

While Imaginary paints a bleak picture of life after trauma, it also offers hope. No matter how far Alice and young Jessica slip into Chauncey and Never-Ever, someone they love is always fighting to get them back. At the end of Imaginary, Alice, Jessica, and Taylor’s escape from Never-Ever shows that support can help people confront and heal from their traumas. The trio’s injuries from Chauncey and Never-Ever don’t disappear, but they do start to get better when they leave that house.

The True Meaning Of Imaginary’s Ending

There are multiple layers to the movie Imaginary. In fact, the movie can be far too complex and busy to enjoy at times. However, its ending sends one important and pervasive message – things that are bad can get better. Chauncey and the trauma he represents will probably always exist because they are perennial. However, Jessica, Alice, and secondary trauma survivor Taylor don’t need to let that dictate their lives. The trio quite literally burned down their connection to the pain and suffering that Chauncey caused at the end of Imaginary. Now, they can move forward and heal together.

Will Imaginary 2 Happen? What We Know & Potential Sequel Tease Explained

The likelihood of Imaginary 2 seems extremely unlikely based on the critic and audience reviews for Imaginary. The Google reviews are extremely divided, but even the best reviews call the movie a rehash of a painfully cliche story. Additionally, Imaginary doesn’t even include a post-credits scene because it wasn’t necessary. The movie effectively wrapped up the story, making a sequel with any of the same main characters unnecessary. However, the ending includes one moment that could tease a potential sequel.

After burning down their house, Jessica, Alice, and Taylor go to a hotel. They see a bear peaking over a chair. However, it’s simply a boy playing with his stuffed animal. They decide to go somewhere else just in case. As the trio leaves, the boy asks his mom for lunch soon because his bear, Rufus, is hungry. This was a defining characteristic of Chauncey, hinting that the spirit could live on in a different bear.

The idea that Chauncey can’t be killed is reasonable, but this scene still doesn’t feel like a teaser for a sequel. Rather, it fits more clearly into the childhood trauma theme. Jessica, Alice, and Taylor may have left their trauma behind, but this doesn’t preclude others from experiencing the same things. However, only time will tell whether Imaginary will lead to a sequel.