Come Play
Ratings: 2.5/5
Duration: 96 Minutes
Language: English
Genre: Horror
Director: Jacob Chase
Writer: Jacob Chase
Producer: Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman
Music: Roque Baños
Editing: Maxime Alexandre
Released On: 30 October 2020
Star Cast: Gillian Jacobs, John Gallagher Jr., Azhy Robertson, Winslow Fegley
Plot: The story has an innate emotional touch to it, wherein Oliver (played by Azhy Robertson) an autistic, non-verbal child is at the center of all. A child with a disability is a quite painful sight. Due to physical challenges and the advancement in the technological world, Oliver learns to communicate almost entirely through his smart devices.
His device has an app that he uses to choose words to express himself. And that creates an irreplaceable dependency of Oliver on the device not knowing how that could have a negative impact on his life. For Oliver, the device that contains his picture-to-speech app is not a toy so much as his best hope for having a meaningful relationship with the outside world.
He spends most of his time watching ‘Spongebob Squarepants’. It is like if we leave our kids too attached to screens, those screens will become their only friend. And it is very much true in the case of Oliver.
But there is one more reason as to why Oliver turns to the device for his solace. His parents Sarah (played by Gillian Jacobs) and Marty (played by John Gallagher Jr.) are splitting up. It is hard for any child, and the stress of that is seeping into Oliver’s life, making him feel even more alone. Also, poor Oliver is bullied in school. The good part is that he is under therapy but even that is not working well for him, and he struggles through his individualized therapy sessions. Sarah seems to be stressed out by his lack of development as well, noting to Marty that her son has never even looked her in the eyes.
Then comes Larry, an AR Ghost. Oliver’s phone seems to be possessed by an app that keeps showing a terrifying children’s story about a creature named Larry that just wants to be your friend. At the commencement, Larry can only be seen through technology like phones or tablets like when someone holds up a device in camera mode. But gradually he attains more power and starts to threaten the real world with its occasional presence. His arrivals are foreshadowed by him sucking power from the world around him, including popping most of the lightbulbs in Oliver and Sarah’s home.
The story develops from thereon as to what the entry of Larry would mean to Oliver and how things change after that.
Review: The story of ‘Come Play’ is a modern form of a horror film. Jacob Chase has neatly used the isolated childhood to spin a traditional ghost story around concerns about bullying, and even the abundance of screen time for our current youngest generation.
Oliver, the autistic child who plays the main character, sees things he can’t explain or even communicate about, and yet it is a strange ghost story, which lacks a genuine sense of danger. There is ambition in the concept that elevates Jacob Chase’s film above what it could have been, but a lot of the best elements of ‘Come Play’ feel underdeveloped.
Larry, an AR Ghost, is less ghostly than it should have been. Yes, the images of Larry aren’t soft and cuddly, but it is difficult to make a movie like this work when there is no real sense of what is at stake. It becomes clearer that Larry does not just want a friend, finally making him more of a threat, but it takes ‘Come Play’ too long to show its teeth.
Overall, the movie is flat except for a few strong sequences in the scare department, it is an inconsistent film that is too often reliant on jump scares instead of the atmosphere.
One of the major setbacks is that the movie comes to life in its set pieces, but then sinks back into mediocrity when they are done. Ultimately, the audience cannot shake the feeling that Oliver is about as real as Larry, a creation on a screen meant to symbolize something more than feeling like a living, breathing, scared kid.
However, one of the cords that are very beautifully touched by Jacob is the over-dependency of kids on smart devices. It will be a good reminder for parents to keep their kids away from smart devices and keep them involved in extracurricular activities. This seems to be a hard thing to do but there is no choice. After seeing this movie, the parents would surely say – Like, we don’t have enough to worry about these days, now there is a lonely demon named Larry hiding in your kid’s iPad and trying to lure them into a hell dimension.
Our national addiction to screen time is going to be a major topic for filmmakers in the next decade. This movie should be a reminder that the idea isn’t enough; the execution matters most of all. And that even if a horror film is about supernatural tech, it is the characters caught up in the nightmare that needs to resonate. Otherwise, it is all as superficial as the apps from which we cannot look away!
