It
is fitting this movie is inspired by drunken college students’ favorite naughty
game, because many future players are sure to reference it. Truth: did you pay
good money to see it in a theater? Dare: re-enact one of the death scenes with
a straight face. It turns out Olivia would have been much better off building
houses over spring break than partying with friends in Mexico, but we could
have guessed that for ourselves. Regardless, she is stuck playing an evil game
in Jeff Wadlow’s Blumhouse-produced Truth
or Dare (trailer
here),
which opens today nationwide.
Somehow,
Olivia’s flighty BFF Markie Cameron can always get her to do what she wants. It
turns out guilt is a major reason why. Evidently, Olivia knows a secret about a
childhood tragedy that she hopes to take to her grave. She also carries a wicked
torch for Cameron’s boring boyfriend Lucas. These are exactly the sort of
weaknesses the demon Calax enjoys exploiting. Thanks to Carter, a sleazy
operator Olivia meets in a bar, she and her friends get lured into a sinister
game of truth or dare.
Their
decision to follow him into an ominous-looking abandoned mission in search of
booze goes beyond any rational understanding, but they do it anyway. They also
agree to play Truth or Dare, because it is so festive in there. Not that they
have a choice. One of the peculiar rules of this game states: “if you’re asked
you’re in.” Things get weird, but nothing gets seriously demonic until they
return to college (where they apparently never have to study or write papers).
Soon, Calax approaches them in visions, demanding truth or dare at the most
inopportune times. Players that refuse get possessed and meet an ugly end. Secrets
will be exposed, fraying friendships, but because Carter’s friends played with
the “two truths and a dare” rules, Olivia’s pals cannot avoid Calax’s homicidal
and suicidal dares indefinitely. So, can Trump build a wall to keep the demons
out? And get Mexico to pay for it?
Any
time a horror movie shares a title with a Madonna flick, it is just bad news.
Reportedly, T or D is itself the
product of a dare. Blumhouse started with the mere title and Wadlow talked his
way into directing it with an extemporized elevator pitch. It all must make
Roger Corman proud, but the slapdash development process definitely shows on
the screen.
The
truth is, you will laugh a lot during T
or D, but it is the wrong kind of laughter. It is not even a question of
laughing at the film rather than with it. You’re laughing at yourself for being
a grown adult, sitting through this ridiculousness.
It
is too bad because Lucy Hale (who will be news to anyone who doesn’t watch Freeform,
the ABC teenager channel) definitely seems to have some potential as Olivia.
Unfortunately, she is surrounded by morons and clichés. The only notable exceptions
are Hayden Szeto and Tom Choi, as their gay friend Brad (still in the closet
with his family) and his conservative cop father. They have some nice scenes
together, so it is too bad they aren’t in a more respectable, thought-out
movie.
Yes,
truth or dare, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous Final
Destination knock-offs or rise up against a sea of dubious franchises, yet
they will never end, even by opposing them. In fact, I’m ashamed to say I would
probably watch Truth or Dare 2,
because this first round is such an unruly spectacle of a train wreck. Not
recommended (like it matters), Blumhouse’s Truth
or Dare opens today (4/13) pretty much everywhere with a screen, including
the AMC Empire in New York.