Having practically cornered the market on mid-range-costing horror and finding terrific success last year with “Get Out” and sleeper hit “Happy Death Day,” horror titan Blumhouse Productions has appeared unstoppable. This week, however, their strong average takes a major hit with the unscary and unfunny, “Truth Or Dare,” a Blumhouse addition that’s so boring it may induce bouts of narcolepsy. Horror moments are wasted on frivolously silly jump-scares, including dramatic body part grabs out of nowhere, the opening and closing of medicine cabinets, and uninspired death sequences.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow (“The Strain,” “Bates Motel“) and based on a wholly unoriginal premise —a harmless game of Truth or Dare turns deadly when an unknown entity begins to punish those who tell a lie or refuse the dare —”Truth Or Dare” aims to be “Final Destination” for the social media generation and fails miserably. The problem with “Truth or Dare” is that it takes itself too seriously by focusing too much on exposition and not enough on the thrilling aspects that make horror films enjoyable.
The film opens with Olivia (Lucy Hale), a tree-hugging cliche who loves Habitat for Humanity and saving the environment. Peer pressured by her BFF Markie (Violett Beane) and friends to put aside her do-gooding for a minute to go be naughty in Mexico, Olivia relents and agrees to take one last trip before graduating from college. On their last night in Mexico, Olivia meets Carter (Landon Liboiron), a handsome stranger who takes an interest in her. After a few hours of casually hanging out, Carter invites Olivia and crew to hang out at an abandoned church, and they follow because it’s a horror movie and these inane scripts dictate that no one can think for themselves. Things quickly go downhill from there, as Carter lures them into a hellish game of truth or dare that follows them back home and ends with deadly results.
Jillian Jacobs’ script attempts to world build by turning something innocent into an otherworldly game of “Simon Says.” When following the rules of the game, you could end up with a broken friendship, or a broken hand. Failure to follow the rules results in immediate death (obviously). While it works in the trailers, in the simplest fashion, the mythology surrounding this pernicious game becomes unnecessarily convoluted as each minute goes by. The mythos is dragged out when Olivia fails to find a solution because the source of her problem (Carter) isn’t high on her list of priorities. By the time she meets Carter again, and the rules of the game are explained, at least 70-minutes of the movie has gone by, and it’s still difficult to comprehend what the hell went down.
Along with the shaky story, the characters aren’t much better drawn. Olivia and company are nothing more than horror trope caricatures. Olivia is the virgin, Markie is the slut, and onward with the jock, Mr. Right, the nerd, the party girl, and the old, wise woman. Archetypes can be fine, but when the characters are paper thin and completely devoid of common sense and situational awareness, how is one supposed to root for their survival? Adding Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram to the mix doesn’t make them smarter or more interesting. Instead, it shows how blank and resourceless these graduating college students are. Much like the writing.
It’s early in 2018 moviedom, but this movie is among this year’s worst. Blumhouse understands the pulse of its demographic, but “Truth or Dare” is a significant misstep, and a weak follow up to last years entertaining and successful movies. The ugly truth here would be to tell you to just skip the film, and the dare is to actually pay money to see it. [D]