TRUTH OR DARE: I Dare You To Skip

Recently, Blumhouse has become a horror-making juggernaut. With box office and critical hits such as Get Out and Split, the studio seems to have left its rough past and gone through a new awakening. However, with their latest effort, the stench of The Purge: Anarchy and Ouija still lingers.

Truth Or Dare may have a somewhat interesting concept but everything else is Blumhouse at its worst.

A Not So Daring Story

With any good horror movies, the concept is important and Truth Or Dare‘s quirky concept could have been interesting. We follow Olivia (Lucy Hale) and her college friends as they enjoy their spring break trip to Mexico. Their vacation takes a turn when Olivia meets a charming guy who invites her and her friends to play a game of truth or dare. Once they all have their turn, the game never ends.

After they get back to their town, it’s here where the filmmakers are left searching for ideas. There’s no direction beyond its conceptual nature and it offers no meat around its bones. Blumhouse’s most recent successful horror movies all had strong stories with a lot on their minds. In Truth Or Dare, the story is minimal and instead, it relies on its concept for the whole film. It’s a decision that quickly becomes tiresome, mostly as no interest is given to the characters or their actions. 

The Typical College Gang

Instead of constructing an interesting story, Truth Or Dare tries a more character-focused approach. However, all their characters are but college stereotypes that can all be defined with a couple of words: the good girl, the alcoholic, the jerk, the gay, the good guy, and the blonde. There are attempts to try and create compelling characters but they never seem to evolve beyond their stereotypes.

In an attempt to use the concept to form compelling character relationships, writer-director Jeff Wadlow just doesn’t have anything to offer. Olivia, Lucas (Tyler Posey), and Markie (Violett Beane) make up the film’s love triangle and their dull nature makes this a waste of time. It’s here where you realize that the game and the characters don’t go anywhere interesting and it becomes even more apparent that the movie is a conceptual disaster. There’s no interest given to the characters and their relationship to one another as its consequences never impact the film in a meaningful way. 

For a movie with as many deaths as Truth Or Dare, it’s surprising that neither deaths are particularly important. Many of the characters exist purely to die and even in efforts to please horror fans, these deaths aren’t really particularly creative. The biggest flaw of the film is its lack of consequences to our character’s deaths and actions. This makes all the deaths in the film completely unimportant and all the actions of the characters meaningless. It becomes extremely hard to relate to them as they have little time to empathize. 

Nothing On Its Mind

When the movie finally needs to explain how and why the game exists, it comes out with a completely senseless and convoluted explanation. It’s such a lazy and run-off-the-mill backstory to a concept that didn’t necessarily need any explaining. Instead, it should have been a representation of a problem or a feeling, especially that these college students had spent spring break in Mexico with no appreciation for the environment or culture. Manifesting the idea versus the reality of their trip in the game could have made a much more interesting movie.

However, it’s clear from the start that Truth Or Dare doesn’t want to be anything thoughtful and this shows during the film’s final minutes. I won’t spoil it but trust me when I say that it’s the laziest, most idiotic ending I’ve seen in a while. Think The Happening ending bad and then some. It’s the kind of ending that’s anti-climactic and doesn’t make even the littlest sense. But more importantly to the director, it opens the door for a sequel that’s more bonkers than the first. 

Conclusion: Truth or Dare

Truth Or Dare is simply a bad horror film. It showcases a Blumhouse of the past, a studio that primarily made horror movies by the dozens without much thought. For the people who’ve seen Get Out and Split, we know they are capable of much more. Truth Or Dare has nothing to offer to horror fans with its bland characters and uninspired concept. The only way you should be seeing this movie is on a dare.

Have you seen Truth or Dare? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Truth or Dare was released in the US and the UK on April 13, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.