Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare opens on a spring break trip to Mexico that a group of college friends will spend the rest of the movie regretting. Olivia Barron, played by Lucy Hale, had planned to build houses with Habitat for Humanity over the break. Her best friend Markie Cameron, played by Violett Beane, talks her into joining the group in Mexico instead. At a bar, Olivia meets a man named Carter. He invites them to party at an abandoned church, and there he suggests a round of truth or dare.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
The Abandoned Church
The game starts as a game. Tyson Curran, played by Nolan Gerard Funk, reveals during his turn that Olivia has a crush on Lucas Moreno, Markie’s boyfriend. Olivia denies it. Then Carter, played by Landon Liboiron, admits he tricked them into playing a supernatural version of the game. He warns them to do whatever it asks or they will be killed. Jeff Wadlow directed Truth or Dare and co-wrote it with Michael Reisz, Jillian Jacobs and Christopher Roach. Jason Blum produced through Blumhouse Productions, and Universal Pictures distributed the film.
Ronnie and the Rules
Back at school, hallucinations call on Olivia to pick truth or dare. She picks truth and blurts out that Markie has been serially unfaithful to Lucas. The friends then learn that Ronnie, another friend, was forced to kill himself after failing to complete a dare. Lucas, played by Tyler Posey, picks truth and admits to having feelings for Olivia. Markie is forced to break Olivia’s hand. Brad Chang, played by Hayden Szeto, is a closeted friend who is forced to tell his father he is gay. Tyson refuses to believe the game’s consequences and dies after lying during his turn.
Giselle Hammond and Sam Meehan
The group finds a story online about a woman named Giselle Hammond, played by Aurora Perrineau, who lit a woman on fire in Mexico while playing truth or dare. They arrange a meeting with her through social media. Giselle tells them that one of her friends, Sam Meehan, got drunk and trashed the church. When they got home, the game continued, and only she and Carter survived. Carter was dared to involve more players to give themselves more time before taking their turn again. Giselle has been dared to kill Olivia. She attempts to shoot her, and Penelope Amari, played by Sophia Ali, dives in front and dies instead.
A Running Order of the Deaths
| Order | Player | Turn | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ronnie | Failed a dare | Forced to kill himself |
| 2 | Tyson Curran | Lied during his turn | Died |
| 3 | Penelope Amari | Dived in front of Olivia | Died |
| 4 | Olivia Barron | Still playing | Fate not shown in the source |
That table is one way to read the movie. Truth or Dare is a machine for producing deaths in sequence, and in this paper’s view the deaths arrive on schedule. What the film never supplies is a reason to care about the order. Ronnie dies offscreen before the audience has met him. Tyson dies to prove the game is real. Penelope dies to prove the game is cruel. In our reading, each death does one job and stops.
What the Game Asks
The mechanic is, to this paper’s mind, the only idea here, and it is not a bad one. A game that punishes you for lying, and punishes you for refusing a dare, turns friendship into a liability. Olivia’s first truth costs Markie something in front of Lucas. Markie’s dare leaves Olivia with a broken hand. Brad’s dare forces him out of the closet in front of his father, and that is the moment this paper found most effective, because it costs something the movie cannot fake. Then the film moves on to the next body.
The Cast and the Carter Problem
Hale carries the lead, in this paper’s view, with more commitment than the script deserves. Beane gets the stronger arc as the friend who has been lied about and now has to keep playing. Posey has little to do but confess feelings at the worst possible time. Liboiron’s Carter is the film’s biggest waste, in our reading. He is the one character who understands the rules, and the movie does not use him enough. Gary Anthony Williams voices Calex. Sam Lerner appears as Ronnie, and Morgan Lindholm as Alexis Podell.
The 2018 Blumhouse Slot
Truth or Dare opened in theaters on Friday, April 13, 2018. To this paper, that date is the most telling detail. It grossed $95 million worldwide against a $3.5 million production budget. Reviews were mostly negative, and critics said the film was “neither inventive nor scary enough to set itself apart from the decades of dreary slashers that came before it.” The tagline promises that first you play the game, then the game plays you. This paper’s view is that the movie plays it safe.
The score is 3.5 of 10.
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