Review: ‘Daniel Isn’t Real’ Scratches the Itch for Good, Psychological Horror

I’ll have the record reflect that the Daniel writing this review is, in fact, real. The Daniel in “Daniel Isn’t Real?”…it’s up for debate. The film throws us right into the action as our main character Luke as a kid meets his imaginary friend, Daniel. Daniel’s behaviour is questionable and when he steps over the line, Luke banishes him into a dollhouse. 

Now, the grown up Luke (Miles Robbins) is a young adult struggling with extreme anxiety (who isn’t?) and when he visits his mom at his childhood New York home, he reunites with Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger) after one of her breakdowns. Bringing back Daniel to cope with this trauma, Luke starts to notice Daniel’s behaviour becoming more and more disturbing, and starts to remember why he locked him away in the first place.  

I love me some good psychological horror and Adam Egypt Mortimer’s “Daniel Isn’t Real” happily scratches that itch. So much of it explores how we compartmentalize trauma (represented by Luke shunning Daniel away for 15 years), and just how Daniel comes about to help cope with things is an interesting idea in itself. Patrick Schwarzenegger does a solid job as Daniel, playing to the horror of his character well, as well as to the dark humour. 

There’s some regular humour here as Daniel and Luke simply banter, which is enjoyable. This is before the film takes a sharp left turn into the real horror of it. There’s a ton of Cronenbergian body horror that I was surprised by, but it looks awesome. It’s obviously fake but it’s practical and wild, so I didn’t mind. The horror also has a lot of surrealism with Egypt Mortimer’s visual style here, what with creepy figures and a lot of colours used in different scenes. Some of the colours were a bit much when they flash and look like a nightclub—but otherwise the style didn’t get in his way. 

Miles Robbins does a great job as Luke, too, trying to maintain his sanity and wondering if Daniel really is real? There’s evidence that would suggest he isn’t, like his mother having schizophrenia and that very real fear that brings into play that Luke is just experiencing the start of schizophrenic symptoms. Also supplying further evidence are Luke’s hallucinations the night before Daniel returns to his life. 

We get this answered by the end of the film, and the answer is a fascinating one with how it wraps into the general mythos of the film and the characters. Keeping Luke grounded to reality throughout is a strong supporting character called Cassidy, played by Sasha Lane. She is what gives him that normalcy and Daniel wants to tear him away from that and isolate him. 

There are so many layers to this film in general, and some fun layers to Robbins’ individual performance, too. Robbins and Schwarzenegger (two sons of great actors, Tim Robbins and Arnold Schwarzenegger, respectively) have a solid chemistry throughout. It follows the pattern of their friendship when they were kids where they were best friends and then their dynamic became standoffish. The beginning is just a taste of what’s to come with what happens by the end of “Daniel Isn’t Real.” I will say I didn’t completely love the final shots of this film, but I generally really dug this film’s atmosphere and storytelling.