It's as if someone put the Slenderman meme, the scary girl from The Ring franchise, The Babadook and a few others through a woodchipper and sprayed the resulting mulch on to the screen.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 6, 2021

There was so much fun to be had along the way. Chase takes his story much too seriously to entertain that proposition. It's suffused with an atmosphere of dogged naturalism, rooted so firmly in the everyday that fun might well be a foreign word.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 18, 2021

Chase turns up the volume and relies on jump scares to build the mood, but the frights barely leap out of the screen.

| Dec 2, 2020

"Come Play" comes alive with impressive, old-school production design and simple direction...

| Original Score: B | Nov 2, 2020

A Babadook knockoff for parents who are worried that their kids are spending way too much time staring at screens.

| Oct 30, 2020

"Come Play" is merely serviceable, and leaves you with the feeling that a much better game was lost in the shuffle.

| Original Score: C- | Oct 30, 2020

This high-tech reinvention of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, complete with its monster POV shots, doesn't have the heart to make yours really skip a beat.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 30, 2020

An inconsistent, flat film that is too often reliant on jump scares instead of atmosphere.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 30, 2020

Come Play ends up being a fun, frequently tense little genre shocker that's also a sublime calling card for Chase that has me excited to see what he'll get up to next.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 30, 2020

Although "Come Play" doesn't come to play, horror-wise, it is a surprisingly effective family drama, powered by a better-than-average cast.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 30, 2020

Even if you don't love the movie's rather cruel emotional tactics (what else is new, in horror?) and Olivier's frequent audible and visible anguish, you can admire the execution.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 29, 2020

Expanded by the writer-director Jacob Chase from a short, "Come Play" feels secondhand in its overarching conceit, its scare tactics and even its sentimentality.

| Oct 29, 2020

Hate surprises? Have I got the movie for you!

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 29, 2020

Writer-director Chase is clearly a student and fan of scary movies, and he's not shy about indulging in familiar yet effective clichés...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2020

Chase's film is my favorite kind of creature feature; one that's ruled by characters not jump scares.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2020

Built around a universal quandary of our tech-obsessed modern world, underpinned with a folkloric tale that appeals to our most primal child selves, yearning for acceptance and connection, it has a heavy metaphorical resonance.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 28, 2020

If Come Play successfully mounted itself as a fright machine or otherwise effective genre exercise, then there wouldn't be time to sit through it asking questions about its intent or deeper meaning. But it doesn't, so there is.

| Oct 28, 2020

It's not very frightening. Nor is it much fun...

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 28, 2020

The frisson of cultural topicality gives "Come Play" a midrange metaphorical heft that allows the otherwise predictable narrative to punch above its weight.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 28, 2020

Larry and its mythos make for a fascinating new movie monster, and the potent scares grab you from the outset. But Come Play forgets to build on the horror as it shifts into a familiar family drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 28, 2020