Truth or Dare

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You're probably gonna call me crazy when I say this: I recommend watching this movie. Keep in mind, I don't recommend this as a good horror movie (because it is definitely not that). I recommend this as legitimately good comedy. Full disclosure, I will be going into some minor spoilers, so read this review at your own risk. There are some halfway decent things about this movie, but not very many. The acting isn't half bad. OK, it's nothing Oscar-worthy. But I've legitimately seen a lot worse in my life. The concept is actually good. The movie is about a group of friends who are brought into a supernatural version of the game truth or dare, and have to figure out how to survive. Everything else about this movie is just bad. Even if most of the actors actually are decent (and clearly trying), the characters themselves are awful. None of them are particularly likable, so you're never really upset when someone dies. The absolute worst character in the movie is Ronnie. He is every bro-y douchebag stereotype with nothing else to him. The best thing about this character is that he's not in the movie for very long. The character development doesn't really work either, mostly because it all just kind of comes out left field. The writing is one-dimensional and kind of forgettable. Hands down, the best-worst part of this movie is the faces people make when saying "truth or dare." A character in the movie describes the faces as "photo-shop filters." I kind of think they look like derp faces. The point is, they are really funny. They're not scary, and unbelievably hard to take seriously. You see these faces a lot. After a while, it becomes clear that the movie's PG-13 rating really hinders it. Considering how dumb the movie already is, it should have embraced this idea fully by going for a hard R. Some of the kills are kind of creative, but the filmmakers cut away from them too quickly for us, the audience, to really take them in. Between this and one of the dares in the film involving two characters sleeping together, this feels like it could've been an R at one point, but was eventually neutered down. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it really wouldn't surprise me. You also have to really suspend your disbelief because this movie has some major plot holes and leaps in logic. The movie hinges on characters acting like idiots, as well as just making up rules for the game that, to my knowledge, don't actually exist. The reason for this is obviously because they needed a way to try and keep the movie interesting. There are a lot of problems in this movie (and it really is awful), but I laughed at most of it because the movie's execution just wasn't there.

*Edit: Apparently, this was the unrated version to the movie. So, even in the unrated version of the movie, the kills still feel tame.

2 / 10