Action ou Vérité

A surprisingly decent low budget horror/thriller combo. Although the general set-up of the film is based on a SAW-style premise, the film works thanks to an inventive script, some well-drawn characters and top acting.

Standing head and shoulders above the other cast members is David Oakes (THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH), playing an ex-soldier determined to find out the truth behind his brother's suicide. To this end, he invites a group of schoolmates to a rural shack to begin a deadly game of truth or dare.

This is essentially a 'one room' thriller which keeps you guessing as to the fates of the central characters and indeed has you on the edge of your seat throughout. The story feels fresh and the characters drawn from real life; better still, I was so engaged in what I was watching that I wanted to find out what happened next. In other words, I was hooked.

A handful of decent turns by the other actors (Jennie Jacques, Jack Gordon, Florence Hall), some gruesome set-pieces that don't go over the top with depictions of torture, and a twist ending that works are all features that help make this a film that rises above genre standards to offer suspenseful, thrilling entertainment.

Because this is a British production, it's already feeling and looking somewhat different and more fresh from other genre movies. It besides is picking an original approach, that isn't always being a very likely one as well though.

That's really the problem with the main premise of this movie. It's good and original all but it's hard to imaging someone would really go through all that trouble, just to get the truth from some people. It lets the movie feel flawed in parts and not the best to watch but overall the movie is luckily being good and original enough to still consider this to be a watchable one.

The concept of the movie will probably be more than enough for the average horror lover to go and watch this movie and for them this will be a good watch, even though this is not a terribly graphic or scary genre movie. It really mostly relies on its main premise and it for most part handles this well, though the execution of it all definitely could had been more interesting and better thought through at times. This movie definitely had some more potential, though budget reasons probably also held the movie back from ever truly going all out on things and make this a truly great movie.

The movie also does still make some strange decisions with its story. It doesn't exactly have the best twists and story developments in it. It makes the movie somewhat ridicules and far from convincing but hey, this is a horror movie. People who will watch it will already have certain expectations of it and are more or less taking for granted already that this isn't going to be a movie with the most tight or most clever script to it. At least the story doesn't ever turn this movie into a bad one to watch. It's just also too fast going for that.

It's being definitely a better movie to watch than just the average and formulaic Hollywood attempt!

6/10

A small group of young adults all gather at what they believe to be the party of a mutual 'friend', the same boy who was humiliated years earlier. When they arrive they find that he isn't there, but his brother suggests that they all party regardless. A game of truth and dare brings out the brother's true agenda. Now the small group of kids are in for the deadliest game of their lives.

I thought I was in for yet another in the endless parade of heavily clichéd boring little teen- scream flicks, but I found myself pleasantly surprised when I found a reasonably well- acted tense little yarn that had loftier goals than the average brain-dead teen slashes genre could usually muster. So despite a few plot holes that I found easy to overlook, I was quite content with this viewing experience.

Lets get the bad out the way first. The plot is as old as the hills and for everything to fall into place the characters have to make some shockingly bad life choices. The budget is not massive and sometimes its shows.

But saying that i really enjoyed this film. The acting is very solid, the antagonist is very believable. The rest of the cast deliver sterling performances and despite zero nudity the female cast are as sexy as hell.

The real star of the show though is the camera work. The majority of the shooting is stylish, well lit and well composed. Even the obligatory spinning of the bottle has a certain beauty about it.

The violence is brutal without being sickening (no one goes all 'Hostel') and there are numerous tense moments. The soundtrack is pretty good as are sets and locations.

The plot starts to unravel near the end (like 90% of horrors) but keeps it together enough not to spoil it.

A very slick and professional film considering the budget.

This movie was actually a nice little surprise for me. I started watching it thinking, "here we go, another teen revenge horror". But once it got going it went well. The "spin the bottle/truth or dare" thing actually worked for me. The movie had a couple of surprises and there was a bit of a plot twist near the end. The characters were actually played well as they were annoying, but in a good way as I was waiting for things to happen to them, but intrigued to see how they would react. And at the end the film doesn't end the way you would think, as it didn't have the usual ending that a lot of these kind of teen horror movies have, and that was a good thing as I wasn't expecting it. So I give this film a 7 out of 10.