Blumhouse's Truth or Dare

Blumhouse's Truth or Dare videos

Cast & Crew

Lucy Hale

Olivia

Tyler Posey

Lucas Moreno

Violett Beane

Markie Cameron

Sophia Ali

Penelope

Landon Liboiron

Carter

Nolan Gerard Funk

Tyson Curran

Sam Lerner

Ronnie

Brady Smith

Roy Cameron

Hayden Szeto

Brad Chang

Morgan Lindholm

Alexis Podell

Aurora Perrineau

Giselle

Tom Choi

Officer Han Chang

Vera R. Taylor

Inez Reyes

Gregg Daniel

Detective Kranis

Jeff Wadlow

Director

Michael Reisz

Screenwriter

Jillian Jacobs

Screenwriter

Christopher Roach

Screenwriter

Jeff Wadlow

Screenwriter

Jason Blum

Producer

Jeff Wadlow

Executive Producer

Christopher Roach

Executive Producer

Jeanette Volturno

Executive Producer

Couper Samuelson

Executive Producer

Jacques Jouffret

Cinematographer

Sean Albertson

Film Editing

Matthew Margeson

Original Music

Melanie Jones

Production Design

Alyssa Hill

Art Director

Lisa Norcia

Costume Design

Sarah Domeier Lindo

Casting

Terri Taylor

Casting

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Critic Reviews for Blumhouse's Truth or Dare

Audience Reviews for Blumhouse's Truth or Dare

• Dec 30, 2018

  A group of college friends spend Spring Break south of the border and stumble into a deadly game of... truth or dare? Blumhouse has spun gold out of just about any high-concept horror property but can it make Truth or Dare work? Here's the truth: nope. This is a powerfully dumb movie that caused me to yell at the screen several times, shake my head even more, and contemplate my own life choices. The entertainment level is related to every befuddling choice this movie makes, and it makes many of them. Take basic dramatic opportunities that it weirdly pushes aside. One character is gay and hasn't come out to his father yet, so the demon-inhabited game dares him to come out. Rather than watch this genuinely dramatic moment play out, Truth or Dare has it all take place entirely off-screen. Hilariously, the gay student comes back and recaps the audience what they missed ("Yeah, I came out to my dad, and he said some things, and we're good now."). Imagine if an action movie did something similar ("Hey, yeah, so I jumped out of a flaming helicopter onto that skyscraper and then scaled down only using my pants as a makeshift rope"). That's bad writing no matter the genre. Take another scene where Olivia (Lucy Hale) tracks down the old Mexican lady who supposedly started the curse. She gets there but is told by the granddaughter to wait outside. So she does. Then we cut to a later scene where the granddaughter says, "She has agreed to see you." Why did we need that first scene denying them entry? If all it does it kill mere seconds in the running time, why is it even included? This scene also involves the granddaughter being coy when Olivia asks to speak to the old lady. She cut out her tongue long ago and the granddaughter knows this but is just being a jerk. These are basic storytelling miscues that Truth or Dare doesn't seem capable of overcoming. We must talk about these silly demonically possessed faces. Oh the faces. It looks like a bad Snapchat filter promotion. I am convinced some studio exec saw a Snapchat filter and said, "Hey, we can make a horror movie based on that" (Look out for the upcoming dogface filter horror movie in 2019). The faces are so dumb. They pinch into pained rictuses, big eyes, and triangular, pointy chins. It's not a creepy image at all. It's like a bad special effect trying to turn the cast into caricature. Then they even directly address it, as one character literally cites the look as a "Snapchat filter." Don't hang a lampshade on it, movie, and make us all realize that even you know how dumb and derivative you are. The accompanying scary modulated voice is also worth a hoot. The end credits even end on the demonic voice challenging the audience to a game of truth or dare. Joke's on you, movie, because nobody stuck around for the end credits of this one (except for me). The faces are never scary, are always goofy, and always funny looking, and that's all we get. The scariest thing in Truth or Dare is the uproariously bad dialogue. These are actual lines of dialogue spoken in the movie: "The game followed us home from Mexico." Oh? "We're not playing the game, it's playing us." Uh huh. "I dare you to get on the pool table and show everyone your pool cue." Oh, PG-13 movie, how naughty of you. "I know things have been a little Bette and Joan since Mexico." No, movie, you do not earn referencing Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or even Bettie and Joan from Mad Men. The characters might be as bad as the cringe-inducing, laughable dialogue. Our protagonist is kind of a terrible human being (spoilers to follow). Olivia is obviously in love with her best friend Markie's (Violett Beane) boyfriend Lucas (Tyler Posey), blurts out her best friend's cheating ways to the whole world, will eventually sleep with the best friend's boyfriend (more on that later), and then also reveals a painful secret regarding her best friend's deceased father, namely she is indirectly responsible for his death, suggesting he kill himself after he tried to sexually assault her. All of these abuses are targeted at her best friend, and yet she constantly keeps trying to say, "You have to trust me," as if these cruel torments should be waved away. It's so one-sided and directed at one person, her ostensible best friend, that it becomes comical. At one point Markie has a gun to her head and screams she has nothing left. "You have me," Olivia says, and I wanted Markie to pull the trigger right then because this was after Olivia told her everything. Hale (TV's Pretty Little Liars) has a fixed expression of confusion with her large doe eyes, which don't require that much in the way of adjustment for the Snapchat filter face. I don't think we're supposed to care about any of these characters, including our eventual Final Girl played by Hale. I was rooting for the demon to bump them off in bulk. The mysteries of Truth or Dare are exasperating and demand further analysis, which I will ably try and perform for you, dear reader. First off, the rules of this game are very sketchy and feel rather arbitrary. A demon will jump around participants but needs more contestants, like the Ring cursed videotape. Eventually more players will be roped in but the old players are still part of the game, I guess, which means there's no escape. This all started because some demon was released from its containment pot at an abandoned monastery, and it just so happened there was a group of teens playing truth or dare. So the evil demonic spirit said, "Hey, why not?" and adopted the game as its own? What if they had been playing spin the bottle or "Head's up 7 UP"? I am almost certain, given the cannibalization of the horror genre, there has to be an evil spin the bottle movie somewhere (a cursory Internet search found a 2011 film with the premise). I feel like the other demons at Hell High pick on this particular demon and with good cause. When given a choice between answering a question and doing some dangerous dare the choice seems obvious. The game seems to know this as well, which is why halfway through the characters are not allowed to choose "truth" any longer. This seems like cheating. The game is called "truth or dare" and not "...or dare." By removing the choice it stops becoming a game. Admittedly, most human beings will tap out of horrible truths to reveal after a while unless you happen to be a politician. After a while it will just resort to making people talk about their Internet search histories. When these people have to blurt out painful truths, why do they scream them? Could not whispering achieve the same results? There's the question of what constitutes finishing a dare as well. Since one's life is on the line, it's important to see the dare through. There's one scene where the game dares Olivia to have sex with her best friend's boyfriend. I don't know about you, but if somebody said, "an evil force says I must have sex with you or else I'll die" it would be a real mood killer. Regardless, they strip off their clothes and take the wanton opportunity given to them (Her: "You're just doing this because you have to" Him: "No, you do. I'm doing this because I want to"). Except in the middle of their coitus the dare demon returns and possesses Olivia, challenging Lucas to pick next. Has Olivia finished fulfilling her dare? What constitutes "finishing" when it comes to sexual congress? The dares also escalate to an arbitrary degree, often robbing the player of a real chance to see it through. When the demon dares you to kill one of two people and the previous dare was far less significant, then it feels like the movie is compensating for a lack of developing thrills. If I go, "I dare you to eat that cheese," and then next, "I dare you to rip it out of your intestines," it feels like too much too soon. Alas, demon party games and pacing. Then there's the would-be solution, which as you could assume also doesn't make much in the way of logical sense. They can rope the demon itself into the game if they reach the hallowed spot where the game began and time things right. the demon has the ability to alter your vision and hearing, so it can already alter your reality to its whims to whatever ends it wants. When the rules are arbitrary and you're dealing with a supernatural presence that flouts mortality, what good is any of this going to do? It's like the kids from a Final Destination movie scheming to have Death killed by Death. This isn't the only movie to offer false hope as far as defeating a supernatural curse, like with The Ring and It Follows. Actually a lot of the plot is similar to It Follows. Just watch It Follows. Truth or Dare is a thoroughly entertaining and thoroughly bad movie. It's not scary and it's not effectively dramatic. It's confusing and capricious and hilarious. And yet, it does find that ineffable groove to come across as something in the "so bad it's good" echelon, something I wouldn't mind watching again with a group of friends and some adult beverages at hand. Truth or Dare is this year's Bye Bye Man. I dare you to watch it. Nate's Grade: D

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  nathan z Super Reviewer
• Jul 10, 2018

  Blumhouse is a mixed bag of films, Truth or Dare is definitely on the bottom tier. The film never feels complete, you have that feeling the production was rushed on the concept alone, very common in this Capitalism world, executives meeting deadlines for bonuses. The biggest issue with the film is the depth of the characters and the villain, never receives a true explanation. The ending is baited for sequels, which I hope never see the light of day. Blumhouse had an impressive 2017 but 2018 has been quite shaky to say the least. I can't recommend this film, I thought it might have that Sinister or Insidious appeal but there is nothing here. Some of the character motivations are dull and the film is over without any real explanation. The filmmakers clearly hinged everything on the concept, it was playful but will never have that so bad it's fun vibe. This is a film that will vanish after viewing, just one of those poorly created horror films. 10/07/2018.

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  brendan n Super Reviewer
• Jul 09, 2018

  The sixth Final Destination movie I didn't really know I wanted. It's pure teen horror trash, but it's of the highest order of that genre and will forever remain a staple of the age in which it was born thanks to that ending. Something we don't get often enough these days when horror is often times more of an homage.

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  philip p Super Reviewer