Film Review: Truth or Dare

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Cert: 15 cert

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Screenwriter: (screenplay) Jillian Jacobs, Michael Reisz, Christopher Roach, Jeff Wadlow,  story by) Michael Reisz

Starring: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Sophia Ali, Landon Liboiron,  Nolan Gerard Funk, Sam Lerner, Gary Anthony Williams, Brady Smith, Hayden Szeto, Morgan Lindholm, Aurora Perrineau, Tom Choi, Leslie Stratton, Carlo Sciortino.

Running time:1h 40min

Parents advised reading before viewing the film as some scene may contain scenes unsuitable for younger viewers.

Sex & Nudity:
There is a brief sex scene
 Two girls kiss passionately
A man is about to expose his penis but is stopped before doing so

Violence & Gore: An elderly female corpse grabs a hold of a man. the corpse displaying a damaged jaw and cut face.

A young man breaks his neck

Profanity: The word Sh*t is used numerous times throughout the film, The word Assh*le is used numerous times throughout the film, mild profanity such as screw and dick is used numerous times throughout the film. The word f*ck and motherf*cker are used both individually once. The word bastard is used three times.

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking: Several men and women throughout the film are holding alcoholic drinks and drinking them.
A woman day drinks vodka throughout the film and is forced to finish a bottle of such whilst navigating a roof.

Frightening/Intense Scenes: Confirmed MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and disturbing content, alcohol abuse, some sexuality, language and thematic material
Confirmed BBFC rating: 15 - strong threat, violence, language
A demonic voice sounds throughout the film threatening the characters.
Characters die one by one in brutal death sequences, deaths trimmed in their graphic nature by editing and camera angles.
Recurring facial morphs in which characters display enlarged eyes and a Gustavo smile whilst being threatening and sometimes physical.
Various jumpscare scenes in which the sudden appearance of characters and their threat occurs to a loud sound effect and visual horror.



Story: 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.

Likes: The Premise of this film concept of an age of game that everyone at a young age loves, being turned into a deadly game of life and death, you come to wonder if this film could actually be frightening. While the concept is there as someone the acting is not bad in places, it does have a slight atmosphere to the film, it's sadly doesn't have the impact the film needed.

Don't get me wrong it's watchable and slightly entertaining in places but there are so many flaws in this film that sadly merits this film to be a poorly made film.which is a shame because the baseline of this film concept is good. This sadly is all I can say about this film being ok but should've been a straight to DVD or Netflix film IMO.

Dislikes: There are so many flaws in this film that just destroys its own concept.

1. The main concept of a supernatural force control the game of truth or dare, using this face app type image to make peoples faces weird with a stupid grin on their faces was ultimately a mistake, it didn't make the film scary at all. All it did was make it over the top stupid and funny which anyone knows when it comes to horror it shouldn't have comedic moments.

This is because these comical moments take you out of the overall feel of the film, making the dark atmosphere of the film disappear completely. There was one moment where the film using the dead body cliche which was the only moment in the film that makes the audience jump, this is how the whole film should've been through the film.

If they had used the ghosts of dead people this would have made the concept a lot better and the film would have worked for the theme it was going with, which sadly the concept was good just poorly executed on screen.

2. Are the characters them selfs, this was down to bad script writing, especially when someone had died it felt like the characters where selfish and didn't even give a damn about their friends that had died. This made the film so off as it felt like there were no consequences to there action, which made every character in the film look wooden, which is a shame because the casting and concept if done right would have been extremely dark and frighten giving the audience a truly scary film.

This film felt just feel cold and flat like it had no passion or heart put into the story, think a face app style to make faces look evil would be a great idea. Sorry but this film for me as a horror fan was just terribly executed and poorly done, this is when these Teen horror films at 15 certs aren't good enough because the certification is restrictive.

Horror needs to go back to its 18 certifications so these type of films can have a psychological atmosphere to really frighten the audience instead of cheap jump scares and cheap scares to make a film look frightened.


Overall: Poorly executed, cheap frightening scares which end up being funny, wooden acting due to poor script writing.

Rating: 3.4 out of 5 for Entertainment / 4.6 out of 10 for the concept.





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