Sometimes I get tired of epic films and films that intend to be quality films. When I don’t want to see a film like, for example,
“The English Patient,” “Titanic,” or even the new “Avengers” film, then it’s time to watch something like “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare.”
This movie, which must be the first to have the production company’s name in the title, is silly drive-in fodder about a group of college students (led by Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey) who get suckered by someone they don’t know into playing a game of Truth or Dare at an abandoned church. Little do they know that there is a demon at the church who takes Truth or Dare too seriously and literally, so much so that Truth or Dare becomes a matter of life and death.
This film is funny, and it’s hard to tell if that’s deliberate or not. One character, for example, dies because he opts not to show his “pool cue” on a dare. This character inspires much laughter because they replay the actor’s lines about his “junk” and “pool cue” over and over again. Another character is made to “come out” to his dad, which shows that this demon has a left-wing agenda.
Basically, this film plays like a veiled attack on millenials and how shallow they are. For example, one student dies because he refuses to admit he forges prescriptions as his “truth.” Although the film is rated PG-13, some of the deaths are imaginative, such as when the aspiring medical student stabs his eye out with a pen.
It’s tough to rate a movie like this because it’s not scary and it’s not very well-written but at the same time is entertaining
and amusing. Director/co-writer Jeff Wadlow, whose last film was “Kick-Ass 2” keeps the pacing fast and the body count high so that we keep watching no matter how dumb the film gets. The actors will never win Oscars but deserve credit for keeping a straight face with such ridiculous material. Ultimately, even though the concept of a deadly “truth or dare” game is so ridiculous, the film works. “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare” is the horror guilty pleasure of the year, so down some tequila and prepare to laugh with and at this entertaining hokum!
I DARE you!