As Carter leaves, he explains to Olivia that the game will follow them and they must not refuse it.Īt a local college bar, sometime after everyone returned from Mexico, Ronnie dies when he fails to complete a dare. Eventually, the game ends when Carter reveals that he deceived Olivia as a means of tricking her and her friends to the mission to offer them in his place in the supernatural game of Truth or Dare. There, Carter initiates a game of Truth or Dare with Olivia and her friends, plus Ronnie, who followed the group. The man introduces himself as Carter and eventually convinces her and her friends to join him for drinks at the ruins of a mansion. In Mexico, Olivia runs into fellow student Ronnie who proceeds to harass her until a man intervenes on her behalf. It's an enjoyable but mostly hollow experience, and it seems poised to become an ironically-fun flick to be enjoyed by groups of friends at parties - not unlike Truth or Dare itself.Olivia Barron, her best friend Markie Cameron, Markie’s boyfriend Lucas Moreno, along with Penelope Amari and her boyfriend Tyson Curran, and Brad Chang go on a trip to Rosarito, Mexico. However, for every well-thought-out scare or innovative moment in Truth or Dare, there is at least one cheap jump scare to ruin the flow of the film.ĭespite a few solid scares and set pieces, as well as a killer ending, Truth or Dare's embrace of cliché and lack of internal logic makes it stand out as a lower tier Blumhouse affair. Beyond all of that, the film's ending (which we will not spoil here) comes out of nowhere and ends the movie on a creative high note that many likely won't see coming. There are a few legitimately creepy scenes in the film, and there's an admirable attempt to ground each set piece's theme in a specific character flaw possessed by each member of the group. That's not to say that the scares don't sometimes work. ![]() Truth or Dare doesn't have anything like that, and it suffers as a result. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, we know we're safe as long as we stay awake. In Lights Out, we know that we're safe as long as we stay in the light. Though it may seem like a minor quibble in the grand scheme of a horror movie, rules like that are essential to establishing the world. In several scenes, the heroes come up strategies that they think will help them stay alive, and the demon simply stonewalls them with the explanation of "that's not how this works," without ever really defining why certain strategies aren't allowed within the rules of the game. In addition to that, the film never really sets up a real set of rules or any real internal logic as far as how the demon can haunt the main group of college students. From the discovery of ancient artifacts while exploring a haunted area to a scene of researching clues of the haunting with everyone huddled around a computer to the discovery of an old expert on the demon who can impart his or her own wisdom, Truth or Dare checks a lot of established genre boxes and plays to moments that seasoned horror fans will see coming from a mile away. In a post- Cabin in the Woods world, no horror movie should rely this much on tropes that went out of style years ago. However, amid the good and the bad to be found within Truth or Dare's story, no review of the film would be complete without highlighting the truly ugly element of this horror romp: the insane willingness to embrace genre clichés. If you do not take yourself too seriously, then there are several set pieces in Truth or Dare (particularly one involving a co-ed, a bottle of liquor, and the roof of a house) that will work. Truth or Dare plays into the same trashy teen slasher tropes that defined now-classic horror movies of the 1990s like I Know What You Did Last Summer or Scream, which is something that Happy Death Day also did last year (albeit a bit more effectively). First and foremost, it needs to be said that Truth or Dare knows what type of movie it is, and (as mentioned earlier) it once again shows Blumhouse's ability to manipulate tone in the service of the story. Upon their return to their Southern California college, they discover that a mysterious demonic presence has followed them back, and it will not stop until the game of Truth or Dare kills them. ![]() That's what Olivia (Lucy Hale) and her group of friends learn while on spring break in Mexico when a charming stranger invites them to play the classic children's game in an abandoned church. Refuse to play? You are going to end up dead. Pick truth? Then you better tell the truth. The title of the film pretty much says it all.
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