Movie Review: 'Truth or Dare'

Truth or Dare, or Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, if we are skirting copyright issues, is a silly, silly movie filled with dopey characters on a pointless quest for their miserable lives. As directed by Jeff Wadlow, the director behind the abysmal, franchise-killing Kick Ass 2, Truth or Dare takes a child’s game and renders it even more insipid and hateful than it already is.

Maybe it is based on poor personal experiences with the game in question, but Truth or Dare has always, to me, been an ugly concept that called on people to do horrible things to each other in the supposed name of friendship and ego. There was always that one friend or pseudo-friend, who pushed things to an unnecessary extreme that left hurt feelings or legitimately got someone injured.

That said, the game would be a fascinating excuse for a character study, one that used human nature and psychology to explore unique and interesting characters. Sadly, that’s not what this Truth or Dare movie is. This Truth or Dare movie is about horrible characters dying horribly in a contrived and laughably assembled plot that strands a couple of not-terrible actors in an awful movie.

Lucy Hale stars in Truth or Dare as Olivia, a do-gooder who gets sucked into going on Spring Break with her debauched friends in Mexico, despite her plan to work for Habitat for Humanity. Olivia’s best friend, Markie (Violette Bean), told Habitat that Olivia was ill and could not attend though then proceeds to fill both of their social media accounts with photos of them partying. These are horrible people that we’re forced to try and sympathize with.

Naïve Olivia gets into a drunken flirtation with a bland hunk named Carter (Landon Liboiron) which leads to Carter roping her and her friends to a remote location to play the titular game. Carter then leaves suddenly with a warning that the game must be played or the players will die. After returning home to southern California, the friends do begin dying and the game asserts a deadly control over their lives that they must try to solve and survive.

My description is better than this movie, which is as simpleminded and silly as my description is brief and concise. The direction of this silliness by Jeff Wadlow is artless and bordering on apathetic. The premise is the star and Wadlow and company are going through the motions of this idiot plot, coasting on comical special effects and the bland handsomeness of this young cast.

The shame of this approach is that Lucy Hale and Violette Bean are giving this movie more than it deserves. Both of these talented young women are invested in this plot and these characters and the script and direction let them down at every turn. Late in the film, a tacked on subplot about one of the girl’s fathers lets both actresses emote bigly and for a few moments I was genuinely compelled. Then the wheels of the idiot plot would kick in again.

These two talented ladies are not helped by being paired with Tyler Posey and Nolan Gerard Funk who, for what it’s worth, are giving this movie the amount of effort that the director and screenwriter gave it. Posey’s go to is squinting and making every line read like a revelation to him while Funk’s go to move is arrogant with a side of smug. As I said though, both Posey and Funk are simply acting to the level of this terrible movie, they border on self-aware in their approach to this silly material.

Truth or Dare is one of the worst movies of 2018. This is a massively idiotic horror movie that goes through the motions of an idiot plot with all the care of a bull in a china shop. There was a kernel of an idea here that gets swamped by the camp nonsense of this silly child’s game conflated into a series of boring horror tropes.