Truth or Dare (2018) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A group of friends find themselves unwittingly playing a cursed game of truth or dare after meeting a stranger in Mexico.

Review: Essentially, "Truth or Dare" is as lame as you might imagine, however, it does offer mild entertainment and is slightly redeemed by a decent ending. It certainly didn't help that the trailer reveals far, far too much; realistically, if you've seen the trailer you have watched about 80% of the story's events. While I had hoped we could get some cool deaths on par with "Final Destination," the film does not deliver on those goods; in fact, most deaths are extremely tame for a story such as this. I was never expecting much so I guess this makes me a tad more lenient than others.

Of course, the characters are super cliched yet there is an attempt to spice them up. For example, the main chick likes her best friend's boyfriend, but the boyfriend genuinely stays loyal to that best friend. At least the filmmakers were semi-aware of horror tropes and tried to avoid a couple. Unfortunately, the core premise is insanely stupid. There is a cursed game of truth or dare that is somehow possessed by a demon. It doesn't make total sense if you think about it, but it's the level of cornball I was anticipating. The rules of the game are that you die if you don't answer a truth, refuse a dare, or simply don't play along. The way the demon can just arbitrarily possess someone is iffy but whatever. On top of the basic rules, you take turns in order so you can prepare and you can only choose truth twice in a row before someone has to take a dare. This does offer up some plot twists, but there is nothing extraordinary done with the material. One positive I did like was that, for the most part, the friends stay united and don't turn on each other that much.

By the end, the story does have one decent surprise as the friends neither stop the curse nor have a final zinger where they think they've won. Instead, the last two chicks pull something similarly to the likes of "Ring of Curse" where it's revealed that they've involved everyone watching into the game. The two chicks broadcast the game over the internet--cursing all viewers--and, since it will take a long time for their turn to come back around, the girls have managed to survive the curse...for now. This isn't an entirely original idea anymore, but it was still a way to subvert expectations since I doubt that many people have watched "Ring of Curse" or stupid "Rings" or whatever others have used this exit strategy.

Overall, "Truth or Dare" isn't going to blow anyone away. It's cheap thrills with slightly better writing than the sources it's imitating. The ending does help to leave a degree of satisfaction with the audience, but even that is nothing to write home about. I think what could have made this a vastly superior film would have been taking a darker tone than this PG-13 route. And I'm not the type to bring up ratings like this, however, this is one instance where the dulling down of adult content was palpable. In a nutshell, this was destined to be rental material for a Friday night.

Notable Moment: The ending, while not original, was kind of cool and brought the story full circle which I liked.

Final Rating: 5/10