Film Review: TRUTH OR DARE? (2018)

Olivia (Lucy Hale) is the perfect college student who during Spring Break is supposed to be volunteering for a good cause until her best friend Markie (Violet Beane) convinces her to go to Mexico with all their friends for one last great week together before their adult lives kick in.  Therein, is the catalyst for TRUTH OR DARE? (2018).  On their last week of Spring Break, Olivia befriends the seemingly harmless Carter (Landon Liboiron) who takes them all to an abandoned church to drink and party and play a game of Truth or Dare.  Everything seems harmless until Carter reveals to the group that they have now become part of a game that if they refuse to play will be the end of their lives.

Now, Olivia and her friends must film a way to beat the game before they all find themselves dead or worse.

The mythology of the film/game, although convoluted, is not all that bad even at it’s most ludicrous as the cast does a good job of selling the premise.  Written by Michael Reisz, Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach, and Jeff Wadlow (who also directs) the film comes off as over written as everything in the film fills like it needs to be explained and justified.  This unfortunately prevents the film from having any real suspense and is not nearly as interesting as it could have been.  This being said, the film looks great and has a very good musical score from Matthew Margeson.  This is just one of those films where less could have been more in order to craft a compelling and terrifying horror film.

Film Review: TRUTH OR DIE (2012)

Even though it has a very common plot behind it, I was actually entertained by the by-the-numbers film Truth or Die (2012) which has a group of British students being lured to a mansion out in the middle of nowhere to celebrate the birthday of a former classmate they all made fun of years before.  When the friends get to the mansion they realize that no one else is going to show up, not even the birthday boy himself but instead only the birthday boy’s older brother.  Since there is free booze they all decide to stay anyways and have their own celebration but as the night draws on they soon realize that they’ve been lured there under false pretenses and that they must play a deadly game of truth or dare in order to survive the night as one by one they are put to the test to reveal what really happened the night they all decided to play a harsh joke on the missing birthday boy. 

The reason why the film is so effective is because the cast is really good in this cabin in the woods thriller where secrets come to light that reveal each person in the room cannot trust each other.  Written by Matthew McGuchan and directed by Robert Heath, Truth or Die keeps you on the edge of your seat simply by playing against your expectations.  It also helps that the film has a great location on hand and the production design is impressive, even though for the most part the film is in a single location.

In less capable hands this could have easily been a film that falls flat but this is an entertaining film that’s worth taking a look at if you like these type of close quarter thrillers.  It even has a few moments of gore thrown in just when you least expect it.