Skip to main content

Film Review: "Truth or Dare"



            Imagine that you could take the concepts of Final Destinationand It Follows, blend them together and then aim the end product at millennials. Make that film PG-13 and you basically get Truth or Dare. Truth or Dareis the latest film to come out of the Blumhouse production company, which is the same company behind last years horror mega-hit, Get Out. While Blumhouse is responsible for giving audiences some of the very best horror films of the decade (Get Out, Hushand Sinister, among others), they have also put out films that are fun even if they aren’t very good. Truth or Darefalls somewhere within the latter. 
            The film sees Lucy Hale as Olivia, a college student who embarks on the final Spring Break of her life as a student and takes a trip down to Mexico to celebrate. Joining her is her best friend, Markie (Violett Beane), Lucas (Tyler Posey), Brad (Hayden Szeto), Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk), Penelope (Sophia Ali) and Ronnie (Sam Lerner). While in Mexico, Olivia meets Carter (Landon Liboiron), who invites Olivia and her friends to an abandoned church where they play a game of truth or dare. When the group returns home, however, they quickly realize that the game has a life of its own and the group must find a way to stop it before the game kills them all.
            Much like how the people in Final Destinationhave to follow the order they were in when they first escaped death, the people in Truth or Daremust keep playing in the same order they were when they were in the church. Like in It Follows, this game follows the group no matter where they are or who they are with. To put it plainly, there is no escaping it. That is one of the elements about this film that actually really works. The mythology behind why the game is possessed is interesting and the way it all unfolds is done in a clever way. Adding on to the stuff that works, the cast actually does a great job in portraying this fun group of friends to follow throughout the film. Although some of the characters are just outright dumb, and the dialogue often comes across as cheesy, they still manage to be believable. 
            Truth or Dareis the kind of B-horror movie that audiences show up to expecting to see fun, creative deaths. On that, the film delivers in spades. Unfortunately, though, there is not a single frame of this film that actually delivers any type of scares. There’s this thing that happens in the film where a character will become “possessed” by the game and this big, creepy smile forms on their face as they ask if the person wants to say a truth or do a dare. This is meant to be scary, but actually ends up looking incredibly goofy and takes away from something that could otherwise scare someone. As if that wasn’t enough, Truth or Dareis highly predictable. It tries to have some twists and turns, which every now and then work. For the most part, though, there isn’t much here that manages to surprise the audience. Even “twist ending” fails to shock its audience. 
            As a whole, Truth or Dareis not a good film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. This type of film is made for a very specific audience, and that audience will have a fantastic time with it. However, for those looking for a thought-provoking horror film, this will leave you disappointed. Those who are willing to accept this film for what it is should give it a shot. Otherwise, this is one that can be skipped.

My score: 5/10
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Review: "Ready Player One"

There aren’t very many directors who have had quite the career that Steven Spielberg has. The man who directed the very first blockbuster in  Jaws , is the same man who has put together some of our most beloved films such as the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Jurassic Park , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and the Indiana Jones series. It’s the same man that, aside from giving us these wonderfully imaginative films, has also given us hard-hitting dramas such as Schindler’s List , Lincoln and Bridge of Spies . His career has spanned 50 years, and the 71-year-old director shows no signs of slowing down. With his latest film, Ready Player One , Spielberg once again delivers an awe-inspiring film that captures the wonders of the imagination. It stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Sorrento and Mark Rylance as OASIS creator James Halliday. The film takes place in 2045 Columbus, Ohio. In this futuristi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Classic Movie Monday (Christmas Edition): Home Alone

For most kids growing up in the 90s, Home Alone was THE Christmas movie to watch. This is the story of Kevin, an 8-year old kid who gets forgotten at home when the entire family leaves to Paris for the holidays. As a result, he has to fend for himself while also protecting his home from intruders. Macaulay Culkin as Kevin was a representation of what most kids wanted to be, which was totally independent and the smartest guy in the room.              There are certain films that you can watch and no matter how much time has passed, it still feels like a story you could tell today in the exact same way as it was told back then. This is not one of those films. Home Alone very clearly a product of its time. It’s like digging up a time capsule from the 90s and seeing what the world, or just movies in general, were like. The entire premise and the way it all unfolds would probably never work in today’s world. I mean it barely work...
Post a Comment
Read more

Classic Movie Monday: "Rear Window" vs "Disturbia"

There are certain classics that, in theory, should be much harder to re-imagine than others. Often times, it’s very difficult to modernize certain aspects of a story, whether it be the topic or story plot. By all accounts, Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery thriller Rear Window should have been difficult to adapt in 2007. Rear Window ’s plot makes the film date itself more than other Hitchcock films. At the center of the 1954 film, which stars James Stewart, is L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries, a photographer whose broken-leg forces him to be wheelchair-bound and unable to leave his house. Having nothing else to do, Jeff passes the time by spying on the people from the apartment complex across from his. When he sees what he believes to be a murder at the hands of a man named Thorwald, Jeff takes it upon himself to solve the crime. Rear Window remains one of Hitchcock’s most decorated films, so it is no surprise that eventually someone would try and remake it. The question, however, is how? The idea...
Post a Comment
Read more