Come Play (2020)
Directed by Jacob Chase
Oliver, a lonely autistic boy, seeks solace and refuge in his ever-present cell phone and tablet. When a mysterious creature uses the boy's devices against him, his parents must fight to save their son from the monster beyond the screen.
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4 films that influenced Come Play
What critics say influenced Come Play
The idea of a children's picture book as a demonic incubator recalls The Babadook ; both the creature design and the strategic use of a motion detector summon the Alien franchise; and even the shark-tooth trim on the young protagonist's hoodie seems a playful nod to Jaws , while his mop-top is pure Danny Torrance in The Shining .
I can see where people would want to make parallels to The Babadook (2014), Jennifer Kent’s horror story about a boy and a book, and the creature that lives inside, but that’s where the similarities end.
It's quite obvious from the set up of the story and its narrative beats that it was inspired by Jennifer Kent's 2014 film The Babadook , as the film plays out almost exactly the same as that movie throughout.
Based on his popular 2017 short film “Larry,” I imagine some viewers are going to compare writer/director Jacob Chase’s feature-length debut Come Play to Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook .
Conspicuously echoing Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Mike Flanagan’s Before I Wake , the film tells the story of a child haunted by a monster that only he can see—one awakened by a seemingly indestructible children’s storybook, and who serves as an allegorical embodiment of childhood trauma.
A kind of late-stage Amblin knockoff, Come Play’s combination of childlike wonder and storybook horror gives the impression of E.T. crossed with The Babadook and features solid creature design that gives Chase’s kind-of-ridiculous creation enough of a threatening bite to unsettle younger audiences.
Much like J.J. Abrams in Super 8 , Chase shows nimble command of specific genre references without falling into a derivative trap.
Still, this film works better as an entertaining family-friendly horror film than the more ambitious 2016 J.A. Bayona directed “A Monster Calls.”
I guess writer/director Jacob Chase didn’t want to be accused of ripping off A Monster Calls.
Mike Flanagan’s “Hush” and John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” both featured deaf characters — each of them vulnerable to their pursuers in ways that your average able-bodied person would not have to worry about.
One scene sees Larry moving through the house with a strange sense of delicacy whereas another scene sees him running through a field much like the creatures from A Quiet Place .
A disproportionately tall, spindly, and perpetually moist gray something or other, Larry is a gene splice of the Babadook and the monsters from A Quiet Place .