Truth or Dare, anyone?
Well, we've had any number of movies about scary board games (Ouija, Jumanji, Zathura), so I suppose a horror movie about parlor games was inevitable. What's next? Spin the Bottle of Poison? Seven Minutes in Hell? Two Truths and a Die? (Alright, Mark, stop it- don't want to give these people ideas...)
I guess if you think about it, making a game of Truth or Dare into a horror movie isn't so far-fetched. After all, depending on what you have to hide, or what lengths you're willing to go to to hide it, it can be a pretty scary game.
Of course, it's not as if you really have to tell the truth about anything or do absolutely anything you're dared to, but for whatever reason, kids and teens have been doing exactly that since time out of mind- according to Wikipedia, the game has been around since at least 1712!
But what if you really did have to, or suffer some decidedly dire consequences- like death? Such is the premise of this film, aka Blumhouse's Truth or Dare? - which is kind of a bizarre title, if you think about it. It makes it sound like the production company themselves are daring you to go see the film, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Blumhouse all but dares you to see this cobbled together excuse for a horror movie, assembled from the parts of much better other movies!
Of course, that isn't far from the truth, is it? Take a little bit of Ouija (or, if you prefer, Witchboard), a dash of It Follows (as in the game "follows" them back home after they play it and there are "rules" to it), toss in a decent helping of Scream (as tends to be the case with most teen/YA-driven horror since that film came out) and an ending that owes more than a little to The Ring and you basically have this movie, a Frankenstein-style assemblage of post-modern horror tropes with little beyond the general premise to set it apart from dozens of other such films that came before it.
I mean, don't get me wrong- it's certainly watchable. Some of the characters are admirably likable, unlike a lot of what passes for horror these days- hell, leading lady Olivia, played by the adorable Lucy Hale, of Pretty Little Liars fame kicks off the film preaching about how she plans to spend her school break doing the Habitat for Humanity thing, and how her viewers should too, wink wink. (This, of course, being said in a vlog online, because, you know, modern times.)
Of course, she ultimately should have practiced what she preaches, as she lets her friends talk her into postponing it for a week or so in favor of a wild trip to Mexico, in exchange for which her friends will all join her on her more worthy excursion to help the helpless afterwards. She begrudgingly agrees and off they go to the somewhat random locale of Rosarito, Mexico.
The crew includes Olivia's longtime bestie, Markie (Violett Beane, The Flash, God Friended Me), who is still reeling from the completely unexpected suicide of her father; Markie's BF, Lucas (Tyler Posey, MTV's Teen Wolf), who Olivia has a crush on, unbeknownst to her friend; the in-the-closet Brad (Hayden Szeto, The Edge of Seventeen), who fears telling his stern cop father of his secret; Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk, Glee, Awkward), who lime-lights as the campus drug dealer on the sly; and Tyson's GF, Penelope (Sophia Taylor Ali, Faking It, Grey's Anatomy), who has a bit of a drinking problem.
Will all of these secrets rise to the surface over the course of the film? Have you seen one of these movies? Duh.
When they arrive, the partying quickly ensues, and Olivia finds herself cornered by the douchey Ronnie (Sam Lerner, The Goldbergs), a classmate who has the hots for her and won't take no for an answer, so we know what that means, eventually.
Intervening on her behalf is another fellow American, Carter (Landon Liboiron, Degrassi, Hemlock Grove), who later invites Olivia and her friends to a "secret" after-hours party spot, which turns out to be an ominous abandoned church on an isolated hill nearby.
Naturally, any sensible person would take a hard pass, but after all the goading from her friends to lighten up and have fun, Olivia insists on going, so they all do. Bad move.
Once there, the drinking continues, and Carter initiates a game of- but of course- Truth or Dare, which everyone agrees to, or we wouldn't have a movie. Little do they know the game is "cursed" by a demon known as Calax, a trickster known for being mischievous, devious... and deadly.
Eventually, the group bails and goes back home, where they presumably follow through on the whole Habitat for Humanity thing. Somewhat inexplicably, the game "waits" for them to settle back in, then resumes, taunting them in the same order in which they played it before.
If anyone refuses to play, they die. If they lie while playing "truth," they die. If they refuse to do a "dare," they die. And, because of the way a previous group played it, no one can say truth more than two times in a row, at which point the next player automatically has to do a "dare."
As one might imagine, the resumed game starts out fairly mildly. For instance, the a-hole Ronnie is dared to show his junk to a crowded bar. He almost does exactly that before an ex taunts him and he chickens out- then he promptly trips and falls and breaks his neck before the horrified crowd. Because, after all, he didn't do the "dare."
Things get progressively freakier, and both "truths" and "dares" get more revealing and dangerous, respectively. Once again, rather than being a continuous thing, with the game happening in rapid succession, as it would under normal circumstances, it instead happens at carefully-timed intervals, for maximum suspense, aka to allow for various plot contrivances, which is, needless to say, a bit of a cheat but whatever.
One of these "cheats" occurs as Olivia and Lucas go in search of a "survivor" of the game, as they travel to Tijuana and back without interruption by the game. Apparently, it's fine with them finding out a way to "defeat" it!
That said, the way to defeat it isn't a walk in the park and is easier said than done, yet once again, the game allows them to get all their ducks in a row before resuming again, albeit at admittedly crucial moments. Basically, the viewer is just expected to go along with all this or the movie wouldn't work. So, in the end, does it?
Well, yes and no. I couldn't help but being annoyed by all the plot contrivances. I get that there are a lot of movies, horror or otherwise, that just wouldn't work if characters didn't do dumb things- much less if the writers behind them didn't write dumb things for them to do. But sometimes, that sort of thing can be a hard pill to swallow and such is the case with this film.
That said, as I mentioned, the film is nothing if not watchable. I didn't dislike a lot of the characters, as can often be the case these days- with horror movies, in particular- so I actually cared about their fates for the most part.
Of course, you can pretty much predict the order in which most will die by virtue of how awful they are, so there's not a lot of surprise in that department, and the film doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions in terms of going fully dark, settling instead for a half-measure: the ending is bleak, but it doesn't quite go for the jugular. After all- you gotta leave room for the inevitable sequel.
As such, the end results are also sort of half-assed. There are some solid deaths and some of the set-ups and pay-offs are admirably dark and suspenseful, i.e. the drink-while-you-walk-on-the-edge-of-the-roof dare in one scene, and the not-so-fast-truth-that-becomes-a-dare (as in a character doesn't want to confess something, so they pick "dare" and the demon says: "I dare you to confess" that thing instead- psych!).
I also didn't find it particularly scary. Of course, I've seen about a zillion horror movies at this point, so your mileage may vary according to how much or less of a neophyte you are. Let's just say I found the film's patented "creepy" CGI-driven smiles more silly than scary, but some have said otherwise.
By the same token, the film went for the dreaded PG-13 rating, so even in its uncut form, which is the version I saw, it's still pretty mild for this sort of thing. Those looking for nudity and/or gory deaths will be sorely disappointed, even in the unrated version.
These may ostensibly be "teen" college students (played by actors exclusively in their 20's, of course), but there's not a whole lot of debauchery going on here that can't be found in any given teen TV show of your choice. In other words, not a lot of this will need to be cut to air on basic cable.
But despite it all, I didn't hate the film. It'll probably be a distant memory in a matter of weeks and I won't remember much of it at all in a month or two, but while I was watching it, I was reasonably entertained. That may sound like faint praise, and I suppose it is, but these days, even being watchable isn't a given in horror movies recently, so I'll take what I can get.
My advice would be to give it a go if you like the idea of the premise or any of the main stars. Hale is solid as a rock as a horror heroine, thanks to years of being terrorized on PLL, and, having seen the TV show God Friended Me, I couldn't help but think of Violett Beane starring in the alternate universe version of that show: Satan Friended Me, anyone? In a way, this is that TV show, only it's a silly horror movie instead. (Although, technically, it would be more like A Demon Friended Me, I suppose.)
Just don't expect too much, keep your expectations low, and be prepared to groan at some of the plot machinations, and you should be fine. It ain't exactly Shakespeare, or even Stephen King- hell, it isn't even Joe King (aka Joe Hill), for that matter.
Nope, it's just big dumb fun, like any number of tossed-off horror movies I could name that capitalized off of better, smarter horror movies from the past. Like the rest of Hollywood, horror movies are hardly above cannibalizing their past. Truth or Dare is certainly no exception.
Check it out... if you dare! (Sorry, couldn't resist.) 😁
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