Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare
Starring Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Hayden Szeto
Directed by Jeff Wadlow
The Story:
Friends Olivia (Lucy), Lucas (Tyler Posey), Markie (Violett Beane) and others head to Mexico for Spring Break, where Olivia meets the mysterious Carter (Landon Liboiron), who invite them to an abandoned mission for a game of truth or dare. There he reveals to Lucy that the game is real, and if you don't play by the rules, you die.
Soon, Olivia's friends begin to die, and she realizes the game is in fact real, and convinces her friends that they have to keep playing the game. As dangerous truths are revealed and deadly dares are performed, they must also find a way to stop the game for good before it kills them all.
The Summary:
I generally do not include spoilers in my reviews, because I feel the whole point of a review is to give just enough information about a film to help the viewer decide whether or not this would be something they would want to see. Last year, I broke that rule when I did a review for "Wish Upon," which was the worst film I saw that entire year. I wrote a scathing blow-by-blow spoiler of the film because I felt it wasn't something anyone should waste their time seeing.
When I first saw the trailer for "Truth or Dare," I already decided that this would be this year's "Wish Upon" - a horror movie so silly and stupid that I couldn't help but spoil it for the readers so as to save them time and money from seeing it. Yet, unlike "Wish Upon," this wasn't the worst movie I've seen this year, and it could tickle some peoples' fancy to see, so I won't spoil it with a humorous, sarcastic review.
That review will be listed at the end of this review. So if you want to be spoiled, then scroll down after my general review, but if you don't, then stop after I gave my rating.
Blumhouse Pictures has had a very decent track record when it comes to horror. They've produced excellent slasher films like "Happy Death Day," introduced us to "The Purge," and most notably gave us "Get Out," one of the most well-thought-out, acted, and scripted horror movies in years (so much so it earned four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director, and won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay). "Truth or Dare," however, doesn't follow that exquisite lineage. Rather, it's a dull, by-the-books horror movie used to appeal to teenagers while treating them like they're morons in hopes of scaring up some money.
To achieve this, they cast the hottest, most attractive actors they could find, while also pulling in names just well known to the younger crowd to draw some sort of interest. Lucy Hale (known for her performance in the Freeform series "Pretty Little Liars") plays Olivia, who's the main character in the film because she exudes all the mannerisms you'd find in a protagonist - sweet, nice, innocent, and all that good stuff. Tyler Posey (from "Teen Wolf" - not the Michael J. Fox film, but the MTV series) plays Lucas, a boy with a heart of gold. Violett Beane (from "The Flash") plays Markie, Olivia's BFF and Lucas's girlfriend. Then there's the rest of the cast, who basically serve as cannon fodder for whenever the game decides to awaken and play again.
So Olivia and her friends are lured to an abandoned mission and play the truth or dare game, and an evil spirit haunts them and wants to keep playing until they're all dead. The film basically spins its wheels as it circles around the friends' most generic relationships and makes us somehow want to feel for them, but we can't muster that much strength. We just sit there, tapping our feet impatiently for the next big kill to happen, and for the eventual method they find to end the evil forever.
As I said, uninspired. A generic horror film that we've seen so many times before, and one that will become an old dusted relic of long forgotten cheap thrills.
The Summary:
With a boring cast, tired script, cheap effects, and surprisingly a horror film devoid of any actual horror, "Truth or Dare" will be that movie someone dares you to see - and will leave you wondering if death is the better option.
The Score: D-
**NOW BELOW WILL BE MY SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW OF THE FILM, IF YOU WISH TO CONTINUE DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK AND DO NOT BLAME ME FOR SPOILING IT**
**SERIOUSLY, DO NOT BLAME ME**
**YOU READY?**
The film opens with a girl named Giselle who sets a woman on fire in a gas station. So far, a great opening. It's always great to see someone set ablaze the first five minutes of a movie.
Enter title credit, and now we meet our main stars which, since this film is geared for younger audiences, are all hot, attractive, and operating under the power of one unified brain cell. Each character is their own caricature, and most of their names I don't even remember, so I will be referring to them as their given stock character:
Olivia - the Saint. She is the main character of the film because she spends all her time giving money to the poor, dedicating her time to Habitat for Humanity, finding cures for cancer and male-pattern baldness, and organizing peaceful drum circles around trees that are about to be cut down to make parchment paper - okay, not really all that (the first two for sure as they're mentioned in the film, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her in a lab coat later).
Lucas - the Boy Toy. Lucas serves as the counter balance between the Saint and the future-mentioned Troubled Friend, who at one moment has feelings for the Saint but then declaring his love for the Troubled Friend. I too struggle to balance my feelings for certain things (such as balancing my love of sleep with my love for being awake), but basically this character exists purely to elicit some sort of drama.
Markie - the Troubled Friend. She's blonde (so her constant moronic decisions that happen throughout the rest of the film can be easily forgiven) who's the Saint's best friend and Boy Toy's girlfriend, yet she sleeps around more than a used mattress you find at Goodwill. Yet, despite her major flaw of not actually loving the Boy Toy, when said Boy Toy shows any sort of feelings for the Saint, she goes off the handle. Or when Saint shows feelings for Boy Toy, she goes off the handle. Or when she thinks of her dead father after watching the same video she made of him trying to cook over and over, she goes off the handle. When she finds that there isn't anymore vanilla-flavored ice cream at Handles, she goes off the handle.
Brad - the Gay. I would say the Asian, but he makes a bigger deal with being gay than being Asian, and he's your typical gay trope character. Openly out except for his strict cop father, he listens to Beyonce and talks about cute guys and wanting Saint to be his beard and so and and so on.
Tyson - the Entitled. This guy was born with the original silver spoon ever made in his mouth, as he's the epitome of white boy privilege, having been born into a family of doctors who've coddled him since birth. Now he's following in their footsteps, but this is no Doogie Howser - rather, he's arrogant, cocky, and sells drugs to other students. So basically, I see good things in his future.
Penelope - the SBD. SBD standing for "Silent But Deadly," as she is a total knockout and the most beautiful girl in the film, which means she gets the least to say and you hardly remember her at all.
Ronnie - the Tagalong. He isn't even a part of the core group, but he worms his way into the group because he's the typical d-bag who has no real friends and spends all his time dreaming about girls and being popular and the life of the party - none of which will ever come true.
So we've got our cast of characters, our heroes, the crew that we want to survive to the end. Or, conversely, a few somewhat more developed characters and the remainders who serve as lemmings to eventually jump off the cliff to their deaths for our amusement. I'd prefer the latter.
Before leaving, Saint and Troubled Girl share a particularly bonding moment, where Saint tells Troubled Girl that this will be a great trip and something they share "before life tears us apart." This exact phrase is mentioned again later. I wonder if it'll be important.
Now the friends are heading to Mexico, but Saint doesn't want to go because, as stated earlier, she plans on spending Spring Break to help build a house for Habitat. But Troubled Friend convinces her to go (after telling the Habitat people she has shingles, which she finds amusing because shingles are also parts of the house - nothing gets by this one!), and off they go on a wild, fun-filled adventure to Mexico where there should be certain rules: besides never drinking the water, they should never follow a stranger to an abandoned mission to play a game of truth or dare. However, since this rule wasn't clearly written in big block letters on their iPhones, I doubt they would've even noticed.
So Saint meets Carter, who's cute and therefore she is not afraid to take her friends to definite harms' way because...well...he's cute. The game of truth or dare begins, and Saint gets the first truth question: "If aliens came and she had an option to either have them kill everyone in the room and leave everyone in Mexico alive, or kill everyone in Mexico and her friends live, what would she choose?" (always the best opening truth question in my opinion). Saint - in true saintly form - says she would choose for her friends to die because it'd save millions of lives. Something tells me this won't be the last we hear of this.
So the generic game continues - Entitled calls to the fact that Saint likes Boy Toy, to the chagrin of Troubled Friend, Boy Toy streaks through the mission, Saint and SBD kiss, yadda yadda yadda - and then it comes to Carter, who reveals his true intentions: he had to bring a group of strangers to the mission to play the game because he doesn't mind strangers dying if it means he gets to live (I really admire this guy, I hold the same beliefs myself). Saint doesn't like this, but Carter scurries off anyway, and the friends share a laugh about it.
Back home, Saint begins seeing the words "Truth or dare" scribbled everywhere - her desk, a flyer, even scratched into her car (it'll cost a fortune to get that fixed!), and in the library she's accosted by a group of students all wearing Willem Dafoe smiles:
And she's threatened "truth or dare," and she chooses truth. She then reveals that Troubled Girl has been sleeping around on Boy Toy, and both are also in the library. As Boy Toy storms out, Saint grabs Troubled Girl's hand, which she replies, "touch me again and I'll break that hand." Thank you, Freddy Foreshadowing!
Having completed her turn, the evil game turns to Tagalong, and he chooses dare. He stands on a pool table after being dared to show them his "business" - to which a girl in the audience heartily heckles him, and we realize he really doesn't have a good sense of self-esteem. So he chooses to not do the dare, gets the Dafoe face, and purposefully slips on a pool ball and snaps his neck.
When the friends find out what happened, they're more upset about Saint telling the truth than Tagalong's death. Boy Toy is next, and he chooses truth - telling Olivia he likes her. Big shock. Then the friends realize that the game is afoot...or alive, or whatever...and it's Troubled Girl's turn. She is dared to break Saint's hand (total surprise, didn't see that coming), and Saint...in true Saint form...demands that she do it. So she does, and they go to the hospital.
There, Gay is forced to tell his dad that he's gay, and he does it off-screen and seems like it was no big deal for anyone. Well, that's no fun. The game then turns to Entitled, who is involved in an interview to be a doctor or something, and chooses truth. The interviewer - in demonic Dafoe smile - asks him how long he's been selling drugs illegally, to which Entitled denies it. Welp, he lied, when he should've told the truth, so there's only one logical outcome - death by pen in the eye. I must say that would be a good way to go out during this film, because I too often felt the desire to jam a pen through my eyes instead of seeing this, but then I remember it would be the last thing I would see, so I guess it's not the best option.
So Entitled is dead, and SBD - who is Entitled's girlfriend, don't remember if I mentioned that before - is so distraught that she gets drunk and goes right to bed. Good to know their relationship was so meaningful to her. However, before that happens, Boy Toy comes up with the most ingenuous idea: only choose truth! Because words can't kill you! GENIUS! So after this bit of newfound wisdom, her friends go on their laptops to find a possible solution to their problem using the most sophisticated methods of detective work imaginable - Facebook and Google!
**ASIDE: See, the film is totally for this generation, as there's several mentions of Facebook, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, and the like! This ain't for some old fuddy duddies like myself, they're from an archaic generation where horror films are supposed to be scary with a great plot, terrifying effects, unique kills and passionate characters! This is for the generation that - as far as the film thinks - only spends time on their phones and acting self-entitled! ASIDE END**
They find this Giselle girl is wanted for burning the woman alive (I figure the police would probably want to find her as well), and use a fake Facebook account (kudos to Troubled Friend who comes up with the ingenious idea! Not like police could ever track an IP address to a certain laptop or anything), and sends Giselle a message threatening harm to her family unless she meets them. This is actually another great idea by Troubled Girl, because Saint just wanted to leave a nice message, but threats of violence to family members will elicit a better response and will by no means be confiscated by the police for later use against them.
As the Scooby gang conducts their investigation, SBD wakes up and sees Dafoe-face in the mirror, and chooses truth since Boy Toy suggested it. Not wanting to be proven stupider than a twenty-something, the game suddenly changes the rules and say she cannot choose truth: only the game decides! I haven't really read the rules of Truth or Dare (nor the rules to Monopoly, which became a problem when I kept taking money from the bank because I wanted to), but I'm pretty sure that's not how the game is played. Yet I guess the game can't allow truth every time, because it'd get boring.
So - oh, and forgot to mention, the gang talked about not splitting up before putting SBD to bed alone - the rest of the gang hear SBD on the roof, and she tells them that the game wouldn't let her choose truth, so she has to walk drunk on the roof of the house until the rum is gone.
So she drunkenly stumbles on the roof, while Boy Toy goes up to help guide her, Troubled Girl and Gay hold a bed underneath (I'm just waiting for her to fall on it and bounce off it like a trampoline), and Saint barks orders like a drill sergeant. All goes well until they approach a gate with spikes on top (of course they find that), and Saint runs it down with her car. Just then SBD finishes her drink and passes out by falling off the roof, right onto the bed having been placed on the car.
Then Saint gets a note from Giselle, and the gang goes off to meet her. She tells them that there was another friend who did some damage to the mission, and they played the game of truth or dare there. She then tells the group that they played the game differently, doing "truth, truth, dare" instead, so the game -being such a stickler for rules - now plays by that version. She then pulls a gun on Saint because it was her turn, and SBD takes the bullet for her and dies. Having failed her game, Giselle then shoots herself.
At the police station, despite some of their friends dead, the remainder of the gang doesn't seem too phased by it. Then the game goes back to Saint, who chooses dare because - again, true Saint form - she doesn't want her friends to be dared to do something dangerous. She's dared to sleep with Boy Toy, and even though this is obviously a way for her to survive and there's no malicious intent, Troubled Girl is so hurt that she storms out because it's not like they're being hunted by some ancient evil or anything. So Saint and Boy Toy do the deed (because there always needs to be PG-13 style sex in a PG-13 style horror movie), and Boy Toy is next to choose. He chooses truth, and reveals to Saint that he really loves Troubled Girl (although earlier he said he loved Saint, so this guy is as wishy washy as a washer on a continual cycle). Saint and Boy Toy find that the mission was burnt down and a priest died, and the only survivor was a nun who's still alive in Tijuana, which is only three hours away - so they head out there.
Alone at a coffee shop, Troubled Girl is watching the last video she made of her dead father for the trillionth time when her father gets Dafoe and Troubled Girl chooses truth - he wants to know why she kept the gun he used to shoot himself, and she responds that she often thinks of using it on herself. The game then goes a step further and tells her she should probably get it - way for the game to try to get the death going faster.
On their way to Tijuana, Saint tells Boy Toy there is a terrible secret she's kept from Troubled Girl, and if she ever found out it would totally destroy her. I'm sure that's the last we'll hear of this little throwaway conversation.
In Tijuana, Saint and Boy Toy find the nun who doesn't speak but instead writes a message to them. Way back in the day, the priest abused the nuns and they vowed revenge, with one girl being able to summon demons. While playing truth or dare, they summon the demon that kills the priest and begins the game of death, and the only way to stop it is to offer a sacrifice in a particular urn, seal it, repeat a Spanish phrase seven times, do the hokey pokey, win twelve games of baccarat, and shoot an arrow into the heart of the sun. The reason why the demon - named Kleenex...wait, not that, that's what I used to wipe the tears from my eyes as I was laughing too hard...his name is actually Calax, so still pretty close - was released was because it was released from its prison. The nun had successfully completed the ritual by putting the sacrifice in the urn, which was the tongue of the person who summoned it - being the nun herself.
Back home, Troubled Girl finally contacts the others, and they agree to meet to come out with a plan. Then Gay - I forgot he was even still in the movie - has his turn, and he cannot choose truth because it was already chosen twice. He's dared to pull a gun on his father and have him beg for his life, which seems simple enough but the father won't beg, and Gay is shot and killed by his dad's fellow cop before the father could beg. This seems like a cop-out (pun intended) because the dare wasn't completed, but it could've been. I think it was just a way to eliminate all the stragglers.
Back in police custody, Saint discovers that Sam and Carter are the same person, and find his address. Troubled Girl returns to the fold again, but then it's Saint's turn again. She chooses dare...again, the Saint...and is dared to tell Troubled Girl the most terrible secret. She tells Troubled Girl the secret - she was hit on by Troubled Girl's drunken father after he lost his job, and Saint told him that Troubled Girl would be better off if he was dead, and afterward he killed himself. Once again, Troubled Girl storms off, because it's not like there's an ancient evil hunting them or anything.
Before getting Sam/Carter, they head back to the house and find Troubled Girl with her father's gun at her head. Saint tells Troubled Girl she can't do it, and that they have each other, and they have a way to beat the game. Troubled Girl snaps out of it and goes with the others to get Sam/Carter, who is not willing to go with them back to Tijuana. But a gun at your head is good incentive, and they set out for the old mission.
**ASIDE: I wonder what the conversations were like on the way there. It was a three hour trip (a three hour tour, a three hour tour...sorry, "Gilligan's Island" theme in my head), and they never told Sam/Carter the actual plan, so what did they talk about for the trip? ASIDE END**
So they arrive at the mission, with some of the most awful CGI I've seen since The Rock in "The Mummy 2," and they begin the ritual. During the ritual, Boy Toy gets his turn, and he chooses dare because he didn't want Saint or Troubled Girl to be stuck with dare later (however, since they were so close to ending the curse, why he chose dare in the first place is one of scholarly debate), and he's dared to pick one of the girls to shoot. He can't do it so he leaves, and Troubled Girl follows him, while Saint holds a gun to Sam/Carter to make him recite the poem seven times.
Boy Toy refuses the dare, and Kleenex possesses him, and before Sam/Carter can cut out his tongue to finish the ritual, Boy Toy kills him. Then Boy Toy slits his own throat and dies, and then it's Troubled Girl's turn. Saint tells her to choose dare and not do it, and to trust her. She does, and the dare is to shoot Saint (this demon really, really, REALLY doesn't like Saint), but Troubled Girl refuses. Kleenex possesses her, and Saint is accidentally shot, and since Troubled Girl did in essence perform the dare, its now Kleenex's turn (not entirely sure how that loophole happened), but Kleenex doesn't really care so it goes for truth. Saint wants to know how they can win the game, and Kleenex tells her that they can't - only Sam/Carter's tongue given willingly by Sam/Carter could end the game, and now that he's dead, they're pretty much screwed - unless they bring more people in the game and prolong their lives.
Remember that hypothetical asked by Saint early on? "If aliens came and she had an option to either have them kill everyone in the room and leave everyone in Mexico alive, or kill everyone in Mexico and her friends live, what would she choose?" Well, here is where the hypothetical turns real. Saint turns on her phone and posts a video to YouTube, after telling Troubled Girl that she chose her (at which point I expected Saint to pull a Poke-ball from behind her back and see Pikachu hop out, to my dismay this didn't happen). Since the players had to be in the mission for the demon to be summoned, she posts the video in the mission so the demon can play with anyone who watches the video on YouTube. She tells her audience - which through a montage goes all over the world - the rules of the game, and after she asks the truth or dare question, the demon is literally unleashed into the entire world. So instead of the two of them dying, she pretty much is the harbinger of the end of the world. So much for being a Saint.
**IN CASE YOU SCROLLED DOWN TO FIND MY FINAL SCORE, I DID NOT WANT TO SPOIL THE FILM FOR YOU.**
I gave a general review above, followed by loads of warnings for the spoiler-filled review following, so if you want to see the review I normally write, read the top to the score, then read no further.
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