Truth or Dare?
I’ll start out by saying I was incredibly excited for this movie months before it made its way into theaters. As a fan of Blumhouse Productions such as Get Out, Split, and The Purge series, I was absolutely ecstatic for this, what looked to be, typical jump-scare movie. Even more exciting, Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey star in this new, modern day horror. I loved Tyler Posey’s work on Jane the Virgin specifically as the love interest, in which he also plays in Truth or Dare to Olivia, whom was played by the wonderful Lucy Hale. Being a mega-fan of Lucy Hale since first seeing her on Wizards of Waverley Place to Pretty Little Liars, the Season of Lucy Hale: starring in a hopeful top box office movie- Truth or Dare, starring in a Netflix Original- Dude, and starring in the TV series- Life Sentence all at once, this movie was set up for success with such a strong and relevant female lead.
As much as this movie was so heavily advertised on social media and TV, it had to be good right? Those previews looked pretty scary and interesting… and they were. Except they revealed what would have been some nice plot twists in the movies. From seeing 2 deaths in the previews, and seeing the preview that dares Carter to cut out his tongue. If I had not seen these previews before the movie, I feel like the movie would have been more enjoyable than it was. I was not surprised at anything in the entirety of the movie and it was not as scare as Blumhouse Production’s other works.
As there were little to no jump scares in this entire movie, except for, SPOILER ALERT, an old man was lying dead in a hospital bed. When it is the boy, Brad’s, turn to play the game, he is shaken and screamed at by the old man out of no where. It is sad to say that the biggest scare in the whole movie had nothing to do with the plot. The only other scary, or in my opinion only other messed up, scene in the movie, is the opening scene. The girl who helped play the first game of truth or dare- thus letting the demon, Calux, out- is dared to burn an innocent woman in the parking lot of a gas station. So the girl, Giselle, does just that, pours gasoline over the woman and lights a match to throw on her. The rest of the movie is completely predictable and the special effects in the death scenes are poorly edited, including the now famous “Truth or Dare Face”, making this movie look very immature.
The actors did not do a horrible job with the material they were given. The actors made the story seem realer than the completely unrealistic plot they were given. The ending was extremely disappointing, for a movie that would have been interesting- had I not already seen most of the movie in the previews. The main characters die because they cannot get out of the game? No. The two girls that are left out of the entire truth or dare game end up victorious and defeat the demon, Calux? Nope. Instead this movie is ended with the two girls posting a video on YouTube simply asking the viewers, Truth or Dare? This way it would take years for the two girls still alive: Olivia and Markie to be forced to take another turn playing the game. So instead of killing one or both of themselves in order to end the game, the girls decide to risk every life in the world by unleashing the demon onto all of humanity with no possible way to end the game. Now, I will give it to the writers that they left the ending open for a possible sequel. But due to how poorly this movie did in theatre despite how well it was predicted to do, there is a high likelihood that there will not, in fact, be a sequel to Truth or Dare.
This was the movie I was looking forward to the most for this year, 2018, and I am still incredibly disappointed months after seeing it. If the advertisements had previewed less content and the movie was not advertised in every swipe of social media, this movie would have had less expectation and a much better scare factor. This movie had some strong stars along with some very talented newbies and it is a shame that the producers and writers were not able to give these actors an outcome such as Get Out. But Blumhouse Productions have already come out with better Horror Films since the release of this bust and have covered up the sad failure of Truth Or Dare which had so much potential.
RATING: 28%