CineTelFilms
Earlier this year Blumhouse released a horror film called Truth or Dare that received poor reviews from audience members and critics alike. I disliked many things about it and is currently one of my least favorite movies of 2018. In October of 2017, a TV movie of the same name was released on SyFy’s Halloween special and had a similar premise. The TV movie is finally making its way onto DVD almost a year later. Truth or Dare comes to us from the producers of the chilling horror film I Spit On Your Grave and stars Heather Langenkamp from the Nightmare on Elm Street series alongside a group of adults who make poor decisions.
Eight college friends head to a ‘Haunted Rental’ in a remote town for Halloween weekend. There, they play the game rumored to have caused the deaths of seven teenagers decades earlier, Truth or Dare. And what starts out as vodka-induced fun, quickly turns serious when the dares become sickeningly dangerous and the truths threaten to tear the group apart. When players attempt to refuse the increasingly challenging tasks, they’re met with deadly consequences, quickly discovering: you must do the dare, or the dare does you.
For a TV movie with a smaller budget and a lesser-known cast, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It isn’t specular by any means but for what I got, I found it to be fun. What worked in this movie for me is the atmosphere, which creates a dark and chilling vibe. Most of the film takes place at this ‘Haunted Rental’ and as the game goes on, the house becomes more haunting for the cast. This movie is centered around Halloween time and you can definitely tell that it is that holiday. The first half of the movie offers the group of friends and their party antics but quickly turns into the game of Truth or Dare evolving into something dark for the friends. The movie offers some creative kills that the friends are being forced to do and questions the group doesn’t want to answer. This leads to the group being challenged mentally as they must fight to survive the night playing Truth or Dare. The relationships are tested throughout the movie as truth cards are pulled out and the group learns secrets about each other. I was impressed with the progression of the characters and their relationships. They went from friends who cared for each other to friends turning on each other, which brought out the true side of the characters.
The presentation for Truth or Dare on DVD is common and feels like it came straight from the TV from which it aired. I have no issues with the quality of the film or the audio as well. The audio captures the screams of the friends quite nicely while they were playing the game.
Unfortunately there aren’t any special features, which is disappointing. I would have loved to see the filmmakers discuss how they came up with some of the dares and which ones didn’t make the final copy.
Truth or Dare is entertaining enough for a late night horror film. For it being a made as a TV film, I found the game of Truth or Dare to offer some creative and gory kills. It was fun to see Heather Langenkamp on screen again, even if it was brief. Compared the newest Truth or Dare film, I would rather watch the 2017 SyFy movie. At least the 2017 version wasn’t corny like the Blumhouse version.
Cinedigm generously provided Hotchka with a DVD of the film for reviewing purposes.
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