Come Play

Directed by Jacob Chase, Come Play details the horror that ensues after a little boy (Azhy Robertson’s Oliver) is stalked and terrorized by a sinister force – with the narrative following Oliver’s parents (Gillian Jacobs’ Sarah and John Gallagher Jr’s Marty) as they attempt to stop said force by solving the mystery of its existence. There’s little doubt, ultimately, that Come Play fares best in its slow-moving yet sporadically engrossing opening stretch, as filmmaker Chase does an effective job of peppering the picture’s first act with creepy images and set-pieces, including a fantastic sequence involving Oliver and a face-filter app, that cumulatively establish an atmosphere of palpable dread. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that Chase elicits strong work from his small cast, with, especially, Robertson delivering an impressively commanding performance as the autistic central character.) It’s equally clear, however, that Come Play suffers from a meandering, padded-out midsection that hardly belies its origins as a five-minute short, which ensures that the movie, by the time it progresses into its somewhat anticlimactic finale, is hardly able to conclude on the powerful, visceral note that Chase has obviously intended. The end result is a just-good-enough PG-13 horror effort that could certainly have been much, much worse, although, given the promise inherent in the setup, one can’t help but feel rather disappointed by the mostly middling final product.

**1/2 out of ****

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