Truth or Dare

I really was keen on this when I originally saw the trailer, and then had my doubts when the first reviews came in. But it isn't as bad as many are saying it is. Yes, I probably won't ever watch it again, but it certainly kept me interested throughout the entire time.

No spoilers, but the ending is certainly worth the watch. It created a bit of discussion on moral dilemmas between me and my 2 sons (16 & 14).

This movie isn't great but I was entertained for most of it because it was so stupid it was funny. There were parts how ever where I would check how long was left and think 'you are kidding me it feels like iv been watching it for 3 hours'.

I thought it would be worse than it was due to the fact I watched Fantasy Island first and hated it and this movie was both written and directed by the same people so I didn't have much hope. It did however suffer from the same issue as Fantasy Island like bad dialogue. I'm telling you this group of writers write like they are making a sitcom. If you put laugh tracks under some of the one liners that characters says you would have a sitcom. An unfunny sitcom but still. I also feel like they are tone deaf when it comes to like 'young people' today, they just go for archetypal character E.g Nerd, Bro, Good Girl ect and then add like random pop culture buzz words.

The CGI/Snapchat filter that they pasted over people's face in this movie was hilarious but it wasn't meant to be and what confuses me even more is one of the characters literally says "it looks like a Snapchat filter". So this was a conscious choice to make it look like this. Why?? It looks stupid and not scary at all.

Even though I feel like iv been quite harsh to it I would say watch it. Like it's a bad movie but if you like bad movies that you can laugh at then you should watch it, I feel like you'd have a good time.

If you have seen the trailer, then the movie is exactly what you would expect it to be. It's extremely average and cliched. Not a bad watch if you wanna kill some time, but I wouldn't waste your money on seeing it in the cinema.

A group of teens find a supernatural entity that is using a game to kill them off one by one; unless you play by the rules.

Director Jeff Wadlow is no stranger to the genre. The underrated meta-slasher Cry Wolf was a simple, yet intelligent take on PG-13 horror/thrillers. With Truth Or Dare, and Blumhouse in tow, he attempts to capture similar teenage themes of trust, denial, and the fact that your closet friend could be a liar.

What works for this film is its ever evolving sense of menace. The entity really bares down on each characters flaws. Each "kill" has relevant motivation and pushes the rating to the max. The facial effects are decent and creepy.

What works against the film are the characters. Most of them are disposable. Merely there to add death scenes and nothing more. Additionally, several scenes which could've added more to certain character arcs simply cut away to move the story along, but leave possible dramatic elements to rot to get to the "horror." The most notable negative is the cast. While not god awful, they did well considering, it was hard accommodating a bulk of the cast. Half of which were total dicks, the remaining cast holds so many secrets from each other that we wonder how they managed to be friends so long. Oh, long enough to fill an hour and a half.

If you love mostly forgettable characters, twists on familiar games, and twisted rule based supernatural thrillers like Ouija and/or Final Destination; Truth Or Dare is for you. Give it a spin. I dare you...

People who rate this movie anything lower than 5 are obviously not taking their review seriously. They might not like the film personally, but that shouldn't generate a biased low score. Unlike a lot of other horror movies, this one actually had a backstory as to the origins and reasoning for the game--I was surprised with that. I expected it to just be a scary game with no purpose, but I genuinely respect that they added a backstory. Next, this movie is overall just unique and cool. Unlike other cliche horror films where some demon figure is "haunting" the house, this film takes a unique approach by having a group of friends end up being the ones that have to do the "haunting" and "killing"; this concept also played well on friendship and family bonds/truth telling and trusting one another. Lastly, the creepy smiles make for iconic visuals that will stick with you even after you finish watching.