Blumhouse's Truth or Dare (2018) | Movie News & Review

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BLUMHOUSE'S TRUTH OR DARE (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

Blumhouse-Truth-or-Dare-movie-2018-poster

blumhouse's truth or dare (2018) movie

Genre | Horror Thriller

Classification | M

Running time | 100 minutes

Released | 12 April 2018

cast

Tyler Posey ... Lucas
Lucy Hale ... Olivia
Landon Liboiron ... Carter
Aurora Perrineau ... Giselle

director

Jeff Wadlow

writer

Jillian Jacobs
Michael Reisz
Christopher Roach
Jeff Wadlow

cinematographer

Jacques Jouffret

music

Matthew Margeson

film editor

Sean Albertson

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

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BLUMHOUSE'S TRUTH OR DARE (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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BLUMHOUSE'S TRUTH OR DARE (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) and Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) lead the cast of Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, a supernatural thriller from Blumhouse Productions (Happy Death Day, Get Out, Split). A harmless game of “Truth or Dare” among friends turns deadly when someone-or something-begins to punish those who tell a lie-or refuse the dare.

BLUMHOUSE'S TRUTH OR DARE (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 13 April 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐

TRUTH OR DARE is a rare misfire from Blumhouse Productions, the entertainment industry’s premiere producer of micro-budget Horror films.

Based quite literally upon the game played by teenagers around the world, TRUTH OR DARE never quite establishes whether it’s a straight-out Horror film, a Thriller focussed on teen anxieties or a Jump Scare extravaganza determined to milk every ounce of tension from the audience with a laser-like focus on the story’s Supernatural overtones.

The result of TRUTH OR DARE’s competing, but uncompelling, themes is a movie that fails to engross the viewer in any meaningful manner, lacking adequate genre tropes and the requisite psychological manipulation required to be considered anywhere near being a successful Horror/Thriller/Suspense cinematic tale.

It’s unusual for a Blumhouse-produced movie to be so lacking in the fundamental elements that have been the hallmark of the company’s success. Michael Reisz’s story pitch must have sounded pretty good, but somewhere along the way - and four writers later - TRUTH OR DARE makes its way onto the screen as a tedious exercise in why ideas, such as “Hmmm, let’s make a movie out of the game ‘Truth or Dare’” should remain exactly as that. An idea. Not that Jeff Wadlow’s double threat (Writer & Director) effort doesn’t try hard to succeed. It takes all the set-pieces you could ever think for a Horror/Thriller/Suspense film and sucks as much energy as possible from them.

In recent Blumhouse movies, such as HAPPY DEATH DAY, the stories have tended to feature a strong female protagonist. TRUTH OR DARE attempts to emulate this, with PRETTY LITTLE LIARS actress Lucy Hale playing the central character of Olivia Barron. The problem with Olivia is that she’s as bland as bland can be. From the very beginning of the film, the story sets her up as something of a “Do Gooder”. This writing choice immediately calls into question the decision she takes to follow a stranger to an abandoned Church while on holidays with her friends in Mexico. Hale’s acting skills aren’t that good, nor her on-screen charisma that great, that she is able to overcome the weakness with which her character has been written. To provide some element of balance and fairness to Hale’s abilities, it must be hard for a performer to be convincing when their character’s written in such an inconsistent fashion.

The rest of the TRUTH OR DARE ensemble don’t fare much better…

For outright histrionics, Violett Beane’s Markie Cameron takes the prize. It’s a sure sign that viewers are getting annoyed when they start verbally abusing a character, as happened in the film’s preview screening. Things have to be pretty dire for an audience member to think they can do a “Reverse 4th Wall” and convince the character to change their behaviour by yelling at them every time they doing something contradictory... Exasperation is the word that would best describe how people were reacting to Markie’s melodrama. Time and time the character breaks up and then makes up with her BFF Olivia. After about the sixth time, it’s a case of “Here we go again” followed by “Just get on with it”. In Beane’s case, not only is her character poorly written, but Markie is poorly conceived. One of the film’s big reveals is built around her character’s family, but the story never develops her in a sympathetic manner, so, by the time of the reveal, there’s no real care factor on the part of the viewer.

The rest of the cast are written as collateral victims in the broader plot that sees them live or die by how they navigate the increasingly malicious intent of the “entity” that is manipulating events.

Tyler Posey gets a special mention for being Boring with a capital ‘B’. Much like Hale’s Olivia, Posey’s Lucas is “Captain Bland”. Not only that, he’s an absolute dimwit or, at least, appears to be. In real life, Tyler’s probably a really great guy, who’s funny and charming. As Lucas in TRUTH OR DARE, he has the same dumb look on his face in every single scene he’s in. There’s no range. No variation. No nothing. Just a vacant, “Lights are on, but nobody’s home” expressionless stare. The absolute worst of this happens during and after he’s intimately involved with another of the main characters. It’s hard to believe that anyone could look that dumbfounded and bored during sex!

TRUTH OR DARE stands out as a film where less would have certainly been more. At 100 minutes, the movie feels way too long for what it is. There’s some very basic film making mistakes that contribute to this overlong running time. The film includes multiple transition shots that add no value to the story. At one point, the viewer is shown a shot of an SUV driving along the Highway for no apparent reason other than going to and from Mexico. In another, Wadlow decides to do a time-lapse sequence of two characters standing in front of a house just waiting, waiting, waiting... Another involves an extended sequence of a character having to walk on the roof of double-storey house while drinking, resulting in, wait for it, the character falling off the roof! They’re all examples of scenes that either didn’t need to be in the the movie or could have been substantially reduced in length to help the film’s overall pace and running time.

Much like the main characters of Olivia and Lucas, TRUTH OR DARE commits the unforgivable cinematic sin of being boring. There’s an absence of tension because there’s an absence of intent. The film tries to work multiple story angles, but never settles on an approach that allows the viewer to buy-in to its premise. Fortunately, Jason Blum has both a prolific and successful track record of producing hit movies more often than not. Given the unprecedented success Blumhouse has achieved, it’s surprising there haven’t been more clunkers like TRUTH OR DARE....

Movie Goer One: “Truth or dare?”

Movie Goer Two: “Dare!”

Movie Goer One: “I dare you to spend $20 to see TRUTH OR DARE in a cinema.”

Movie Goer Two: “You really don’t like me, do you?”