Come Play (2020)

Come Play (2020), written and directed by Jacob Chase, is about a child who is communicating with a monster entity that seeks to take this child. I'd wager that the probability of a well-rounded horror movie along those vague lines of having about 30% chance of being fire and 30% chance of being mid and 40% of being trash. Come Play doesn't disappoint and offers surprises coupled with intrigue throughout the film despite much of the core horror elements being known from the trailer. The main character is a lonely child named Oliver who happens to have autism, portrayed by Azhy Robertson; this young actor's performance is amazing and he ties it together in ways that most child roles in horror don't typically do. This child, Oliver, is frankly one of the only characters to root for throughout the movie. To watch the movie now with an Amazon Prime subscription click here.

Come Play 2020 spoilers past this point

From the start we jump right into the action, the monster, Larry, seeks to take children and lure them through communicating via en eBook called, “Misunderstood Monsters,” that updates throughout the movie. The story updates are part of the tool that Larry uses to communicate with the children it is grooming to take. It is quickly apparent that Oliver's parents struggle with raising a special needs child, his mother, portrayed by Gillian Jacobs, in particular struggling with a lack of understanding for Oliver and his father, portrayed by Winslow Fegley, struggling with caring for Oliver while dealing with the relationship frictions between Oliver and his mom.

Solid tension that brings the viewer to the edge of their seat is built through the use of crunching noises accompanied by flickering lights and moaning sounds whenever Larry is present or closing in. Along with sounds the ability to only see the monster, Larry, through phone and tablet cameras makes it feel the monster could be anywhere, even right in front of the characters, at any time. At one point we even see Oliver using a distance measuring tool to show that Larry is swiftly approaching Oliver to attack and despite those being the only elements in the scene it's scary, intense, and well done. This is a really cool way to make horror without having to show the monster in every scary scene and avoiding sub-par CGI or bad cloak and dagger devices.

Due to Oliver's struggles making friends at school Larry hones in on his loneliness and seeks to remove him from what Larry considers a phone obsessed and lonely world. His loneliness is what attracts Larry to Oliver to begin with and seems to be the driving force behind the luring and connection. His mom makes circumstances more difficult unbeknownst to him like lying to a classmates mother and putting him in social scenarios where he is set up to fail. It is infuriating to watch Oliver be bullied by classmates but the performance by those young actors are extremely good and able to invoke a feeling of anger towards the behavior due to the believability and fluid action of the scene typically scene in scenes with adult actors.

It is clear that Oliver's mom is meant to be on the not-so-awesome side of the spectrum when her character arc results in her sacrificing herself to save Oliver. She takes Larry's hand instead of Oliver's in a scene that is the horrifying culmination of events, the full abilities of Larry having been displayed at this point. Throughout the movie it isn't clear the extent of Larry's abilities due to the ever reaching tendrils technology has reached into everyday life. The concept of smart devices being used to haunt and torment families is no longer a new concept but I think this movie tells that story really well and creatively while being extremely modern.

Come Play is available on Amazon Prime at the time of updating this post June 23, 2025.