The Dare

No plot, victims are idiots, screenplay is bad, doesn't come close to Saw. Good if you're a twelve year old.

In a sea of generic horror-thrillers, The Dare just about managed to peek above the waves and entertain me briefly before disappearing back to the murky depths below to be forgotten.

The production values were decent enough and I even found myself impressed with the camera-work at a few spots. The acting was serviceable for this kind of film and there was enough gruesome moments to keep my attention. The plot and characterisation however was terribly cliche, predictable and possibly the films biggest weaknesses.

If you keep your expectations in check then The Dare can be a mildly fun but forgettable 90 minutes for fans of this kind of thing.

My expectations were fairly low for 'The Dare'. I saw some people saying it had a similar feel to 'Saw' and that's typically all the green-light I need to give a film a shot. I could see why they would make that connection - people tied up in a room with the promise of torture to come - but ultimately the film ends up being very different to that. The torturer's motivations, the way the story plays out and the gruesomeness coming more from brutality rather than clever gadgets are the main points of difference. The film had some good stuff going for it though.

I love it when you can relate to a villain. The best villains are ones that can be understood and the elite ones are the ones where you question whether or not you should be on their side. I'll be honest, by the end of this film I was genuinely torn over who I should be rooting for. The film deserves massive props for the way it set that up. It puts an enormous amount of effort into showing the back-story and it was all worth it.

The film does lose steam a little in the second half. It runs out of ideas a little and plays out a little bit too predictably for my liking. It also reveals its cards a little too early in the runtime and is left with a little too much time to fill in after that. The gore gets pretty intense at times so prepare yourself for that. There's also a fun final scene that ends the film on a positive and memorable note. I had a surprisingly good time with 'The Dare' and would recommend people give it a shot.

But it's hilarious when people come on to review a horror movie & say too much gore.

Or unnecessary gore. It's like watching a slasher movie & saying, Too much murder. Or watching a comedy & saying, way to many funny jokes or funny moments for my liking. Or watching a drama & saying, movie was way too serious & intense. Or watching a movie about a main character who is a misogynist & saying they don't like that movie cuz it contains misogyny. Like for 1, you would think they'd understand it's 1 character in a movie on the latter point. I heard some hash Kiss Kiss bang bang cuz the way they portrayed a gay & that gays don't act like that. As if you can put all gays in a box. It was 1 gay man, and maybe he does act that way. Who are you to say how a gay should act. Whether it's "too flamboyant" or you have another issue with it. Or any character. As far as the "too much gore", it's like me ordering an extra spicy meal & say, ya I don't like this & running to Yelp & complaining about the meal I just ate from a place.

So if you don't like gore, I wouldn't watch the movie. If you don't like things that tend to be in the horror genre movies, I'd also not watch. Don't wanna give movie away, but I agree with most who say it's similar to saw. Obv completely different plot & different characters tho. It's just basically if you into a movie like saw, you might into this.

Not a great movie. It starts off with promise but doesn't go anywhere interesting. Gets tedious and silly. A bit sad cause there was potential. Was hard to make it through.