WHAT’S IT ABOUT
Oliver is a lonely young boy who feels different from everyone else. Desperate for a friend, he seeks solace and refuge in his ever-present cell phone and tablet. When a mysterious creature uses Oliver’s devices against him to break into our world, Oliver’s parents must fight to save their son from the monster beyond the screen.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
I remembered back in 2017 when Come Play was just a short film with the hopes of being a feature. If you saw the original short film, you wanted to see a full-length movie like most people. Well, it’s 2020, and Focus Features made it happen. Apparently, the writers seem to have run out of good ideas on the short version. In that version, a monster comes through a tablet used by a worker in a kiosk. In the full version, the story is interpreted as a child’s storybook involving a scary-looking monster named Larry. It’s basically a perverted version of The Ugly Duckling. Only in this story, the monster doesn’t get better looking. He convinces kids to play with him because he’s never going to leave and/or disappoint you. To make that stupid story work, they use an autistic child named Oliver, who communicates using his smartphone to speak for him. Oliver also gets picked on at school because of his condition, and you know how cruel kids can be. Once you’re familiar with the hardships of Oliver, the story turns to his parents. Like normal couples, they fight, and the threat of divorce is in the air. As things develop between Oliver and Larry, you never know the true intentions of Larry. Throughout the film, his words don’t match his actions as he says he wants to protect kids but does through violence. On some level, you get the feeling Larry is mentally the same age as Oliver with the unfortunate act of being in the body of an eight-foot grotesque monster. All of this story development and no real story that matters. The parents don’t matter, Oliver’s friends don’t matter, and the things that do matter end up not mattering at all. Come Play never takes off or gives anyone a reason to continue watching past the first fifteen minutes. 2020 continues to suck.
OUR RATING – A DON’T PLAY 3
MEDIA
- Genre – Horror
- Street date
- Digital – January 12th 2020
- DVD/Blu-Ray – January 26th 2021
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 2:39.1
- Sound –English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French: DTS 5.1, Spanish: DTS 5.1
- Subtitles –English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras
- none