Come Play (2020)

A creature called Larry, which uses mobile devices as portals, seeks to take an autistic kid back to the world it comes from.

The logline is not promising. We are talking about a creature that manifests itself through phones and tablets if one reads its illustrated story, blows fuses, and is called “Larry.” If that is not a millennial thing, I don’t know what is.

Where do I begin here…

• Coming out of phones and tablets?! And a bit of a spoiler here: through TV programs, choose films to speak! I wish I knew what to say…
• Who, how, and why wrote that illustrated that story? How did it circulate to other devices? And why now?
• The “fuses” part is somehow explained, but… called “Larry”?! Larry?!?!

Script aside, the filmmaking style is a pure homage to Tob Hooper (or Steven Spielberg) and Poltergeist (1982). It’s a great feeling seeing the low-angle dolly shots, the protracted shots, and the Dutch Angles, to say but a few, in a house that could have been haunted or include an old-fashioned monster. The experience of horror through a kid’s eyes, especially autistic, would be something that would get my undivided attention in the blink of an eye. Young, Azhy Robertson is great! Although not with the typewriter, writer/director Jacob Chase does a brilliant job with the camera. He adapted his own homonymous short horror, Larry (2017) – which I haven’t watched – and many people liked it. Fair enough. Besides being an incredible woman, Gillian Jacobs is also an incredible actress. If you haven’t watched Gardens of the Night (2008), you should definitely do so.

To conclude, the directing is impressive, the acting is brilliant, the jump-scares are not always necessary, and the script is for people who have never known life without a phone.

P.S. What about Spongebob, right?

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