Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A family find themselves terrorized by their eight-year-old son's imaginary friend.
Z is a competent Canadian horror-thriller that leans heavily on familiar imaginary-friend-as-evil-entity territory. The performances are solid, particularly Keegan Connor Tracy as the increasingly desperate mother, and the cinematography maintains an effectively unsettling domestic atmosphere. However, the plot follows well-worn horror tropes without subverting expectations in any meaningful way, and the ending feels rushed and undercooked, failing to deliver a satisfying payoff for the tension built throughout. Novelty suffers most as the imaginary friend horror concept has been explored more distinctively elsewhere, making Z feel derivative despite its competent execution.