Come Play (2020)

Movie Info

This isn’t the type of friend I’d hope you’d make, Oliver

Oliver (Azhy Robertson) is a high-functioning, non-verbal boy with autism.  His condition has isolated him from friends and driven a wedge between his mother Sarah (Gillian Jacobs) and her husband Marty (John Gallagher Jr.).  When Oliver finds a story on his phone about a man named Larry who also doesn’t have friends, Larry seems to surround Oliver through all of his electronics.  Larry wants Oliver to be his friend…and he’ll stop at nothing to get him.

Written and directed by Jacob Chase, Come Play is a technological supernatural horror thriller.  Based on a short film from 2017, the movie premiered during the COVID-19 outbreak and was largely available for streaming.  It received mixed reviews from critics.

I’m a sucker for boogeyman horror movies.  Almost every kid had a boogeyman of some type and the horror is rather universal.  While the movie feels like an amalgam of a lot of other similar films, it does have some decent moments and scares.

Jack Skellington was really typecast after Nightmare Before Christmas

Largely, the plot feels like The Ring meets The Babadook meets Lights Out.  It takes good aspects from all of those stories and crafts them into a story about (largely) a mother unable to connect with her child but willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for him.  While the film has some good moments, there are points where it seems to meander instead of ratcheting up the horror…and Larry seems to take his time getting there if he can force people to “read” his story.

Gillian Jacobs is good as the mother, and it always fun to see her in a different role than her comedic turn in Community.  It feels like Azhy Robertson is channeling his inner Danny Torrance from The Shining in a lot of scenes but does a decent job with his role in the film.  The person who struggles the most in the movie is John Gallagher Jr. who doesn’t feel as connected to the script.  I have liked him in other genre movies like 10 Cloverfield Lane and Hush, but I don’t think he works well here.

I just want a pal!

The key to all these movies is a spooky creature, and the plain named “Larry” does qualify.  A lot of times, you don’t really get to see the monster in these type of films, but the last few sequences of the movie, you do get plenty of good looks at Larry.  The design is good and he resembles a “real” version of Jack Skellington (who forgot to wear his suit).

Come Play in some ways is a kind of generic horror movie, but it is a movie that you can enjoy for some simple kicks.  The monster is good, the story is ok, and the acting (for the most part) is decent.  Despite being rated PG-13, it brings the horror which is something that PG-13 movies can sometimes do even better than an R-Rated movie simply because they have to work harder to come up with the things that frighten you.  Come Play with me hits most of the marks.