‘Come Play’ Review: Great Frights and Solid Scares

In today’s technology driven society, most of us are always within an arm’s reach of one device or another with access to an entire world of information. It’s our go-to distraction. But what if there was an evil lurking just on the other side of the digital screen; an evil who just wants to be your friend no matter what and would do anything to get to you. Based on the short film Larry by Jacob Chase, Come Play brings classic horror to the modern technological era and delivers a solid amount of scares among a twisted story.

Oliver (Azhy Robertson) is autistic and only communicates through his phone through an app where he can select an image for whatever word he wants to say. Spending most of his time watching Spongebob, Oliver doesn’t have many friends. One day he comes across a strange eBook on his phone that tells the story of this grotesque creature named Larry who, like Oliver, is different and just wants a friend. At the same time, strange things start happening around Oliver as Larry isn’t just a story and will do whatever it takes to be Oliver’s friend forever.

Come Play is an oftentimes creepy and chilling horror film that uses sound and jump scares to its wonderful advantage. Larry is initially invisible and can only be seen through a device’s camera, leading to some genuinely tense moments as characters unknowingly go about their business unaware of what monster is lurking in the darkness. The sound design is fantastic and beautifully captures every movement of his with disturbing creaks and moans. The jump scares may be pretty basic, but the film does a good job at spreading them out and taking full advantage of a scene.

The biggest issue with Come Play, however, is the fact that the film essentially keeps restarting over and over. The way Larry works is that for him to fully come into our world, the creepy book has to be finished. The further along you are in the story, the more control he has. Unfortunately, it takes the film a while to get there and we get to see multiple characters go through the process of reading the story from the beginning, which gets repetitive fairly quickly. Thankfully Larry is creepy enough that it’s not too much of a distraction, but just a simple annoyance.

Overall, Come Play delivers some great frights and solid scares with some great story elements that don’t confine to your typical horror tropes. It may seem a bit cheesy at first, but give it a beat or two and you’ll get sucked into its screen.