Come Play review: A spindly evil creature is hiding in our screens in this effective new horror-thriller

Horror films about the invasive presence of technology in our lives are nothing new, but writer-director Jacob Chase gets at something that feels particularly of the moment with Come Play, a creepy new supernatural horror film based on his 2017 short, Larry.

Azhy Robertson (Marriage Story) stars as Oliver, a young non-verbal Autistic boy who feels cut off from the rest of the world. His parents, Sarah (Gillian Jacobs, Community, I Used to Go Here) and Marty (John Gallagher Jr., The Newsroom, 10 Cloverfield Lane) are on the outs, and he’s constantly picked on at school, even by his old friend Bryon (Winslow Fegley). Oliver relies on his cell phone to communicate through a verbalization app and clings to it as if his life depended on it (which it basically does).

Oliver soon notices something strange on his phone; a storybook appears on his screen that he can’t remove, featuring an eerie elongated humanoid creature named Larry, that looks like a stretched-out E.T. The story explains that Larry wants to be his friend, and won’t let him go once he has his sights on him.

Oliver begins sensing Larry intruding into real-life, but he can’t see him unless he looks through a screen, like with his trusty phone. His parents are at their wit’s end, but after a forced sleepover turns awry when Larry shows up and spooks Oliver and his “friends,” Sarah becomes determined to banish Larry by any means necessary to save her son from his clutches.

In many ways, Come Play feels like an updated version of The Babadook, except instead of a creepy children’s book, now there’s an app for that. It’s best not to dwell too hard on the logistics of that delivery here (there has to be a more efficient way for an evil spirit to lure children than a lavishly illustrated e-book), as Chase’s idea of a malevolent force birthed from our collective loneliness is a legitimately creepy idea that feels all too relevant in our chaotic and isolated times.

The idea of being pursued by a creature as terrifying as Larry (a truly great creature design) and not being able to vocalize that fear is truly unsettling, and Azhy Robertson does a great job of balancing Oliver’s shy loneliness with outright terror. Gillian Jacobs is also strong as a strained mother dealing with her impending separation, her child’s special needs, and then a mystifying force trying to pull him away from her.

While the film mostly follows a fairly predictable horror film trajectory, Chase finds some clever ways to make the mostly unseen Larry an unnerving presence, including a set-piece involving a deserted parking lot that ranks with one of the best horror sequences this year. Without delving into spoiler territory, the film also throws some unexpected curveballs at the 11th hour that really reinforce the emotional family dynamics at the core of the story.

It might be easy to wring an emotional response out of watching a child in peril, but Jacob Chase has crafted an inventive and stylish horror film that works as much as a family drama as it does a vehicle for serving up jump scares. Come Play prods at the inherent loneliness brought on by our dependence on technology to create an involving and thrilling new world that seems ripe for the franchise treatment. After all, every app eventually needs an update.

Come Play is in select theatres on October 30.