TRUTH OR DARE
Director : Jeff Wadlow
Year : 2018
Genre : Horror
Having financed a number of critical and commercial hits over the past few years such as 'Split', 'The Gift' and 'The Conjuring' series as well as a couple of Academy Award winners with 'Get Out' and 'Whiplash', it is very disappointing to see Blumhouse Productions unleash a film as truly terrible as 'Truth Or Dare', a movie so riddled with plotholes, annoying characters, bad performances and unoriginal jump scares that it unintentionally calls to mind the awful late 90's/ early 00's teen horrors that were released in the wake of Wes Craven's game-changing 1996 slasher classic 'Scream'; films such as the hokey 'Urban Legend', the derivative 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' and the downright dreadful Jon Bon Jovi vehicle 'Cry_Wolf'.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow - the same man who, to the dismay of cinemagoers around the world, made 'Cry_Wolf' nearly a decade and a half ago - 'Truth Or Dare' follows a group of very unlikable American college students whose Spring Break vacation to Mexico turns into a living nightmare when they become wrapped up in a supernatural game of Truth Or Dare - the cruel twist being that the player will immediately die if they lie or fail to complete the dare given to them. Cue a series of sub-par 'Final Destination' death scenes as our quintet of dysfunctional heroes are sequentially picked off by game while the others attempt to bring an end to the chaos which has followed them across the border.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow - the same man who, to the dismay of cinemagoers around the world, made 'Cry_Wolf' nearly a decade and a half ago - 'Truth Or Dare' follows a group of very unlikable American college students whose Spring Break vacation to Mexico turns into a living nightmare when they become wrapped up in a supernatural game of Truth Or Dare - the cruel twist being that the player will immediately die if they lie or fail to complete the dare given to them. Cue a series of sub-par 'Final Destination' death scenes as our quintet of dysfunctional heroes are sequentially picked off by game while the others attempt to bring an end to the chaos which has followed them across the border.
To its minimal credit, the initial concept is a pretty neat one and in the hands of better writers and directors, 'Truth Or Dare' could have been a snappy and enjoyable horror thriller in the vein of 'Would You Rather?', 'Nerve' or even the aforementioned 'Final Destination' franchise. However, thanks to uninspired direction by Wadlow, a script so full of exposition it's almost hilarious and unanimously weak performances from the entirety of the cast, it is a painfully tiresome viewing experience made that much worse by the distinct absence of anything remotely scary happening at all - an aspect sorely highlighted by both the numerous deaths which are patronisingly tame and bloodless and the demonic smiling faces that continually harass our central group which look like they were created via bad Instagram filters. Boring, overlong, cliched and annoyingly scare-free, this is truthfully one of the worst movies of the year.
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