Blumhouse's Truth or Dare
The worst thing about Truth or Dare is its premise: A group of college kids go to Mexico for spring break, where they meet a mysterious dude who lures them to an abandoned convent to play truth or dare. When they return to SoCal, the friends realize the game never ended, and that the consequences of being dishonest or failing to complete a dare are deadly. The story of Americans visiting an “exotic” place and catching an evil virus is old, stupid, offensive, and also boring. In all other areas, though, Truth or Dare delivers as another dumb-but-fun horror movie from dumb-but-fun horror movie machine Blumhouse Productions, with plentiful jump scares, self-aware millennial humor (i.e. when they comment that a demon makes people’s faces look like a fucked-up Snapchat filter), and plenty of true-blue horror tropes, like “Oh no, the demon says we have to have sex or we’ll die!” I probably wouldn’t spend money to see this in a theater, but it’s satisfying junk food for those who enjoy testing their adrenal glands.
by Ciara Dolan