Film of the Week: Truth or Dare

It’s often a horror movie ends on a bleak note, not a happy one. Defeating some supernatural evil entity, and moving on with their lives that have now been completely changed because of the film’s events. Truth or Dare ends not with the entity defeated, but having grown exceptionally stronger than ever before. There is a high possibility that a huge chunk of the human race would have died after the film ended.

Truth or Dare is a film where the party game goes wildly out of control. The demon that has possessed the idea asks the characters ‘truth or dare’ – if they answer falsely, or fail or refuse to complete a dare, the demon will possess you and kill you. These truths are your deepest secrets, and the dares are perilous or relationship damaging.

In terms of this horror film being scary, it isn’t. It’s timid; there are a couple of jump scares, except all of them aren’t connected with the demon, just a character unintentionally sneaking up on someone else whilst in a spooky environment. The film does its best to highlight the scares, by overlaying eerie music, and the usual slow moving camera coupled with the characters walking gingerly around the place. However, the handling of the concept was done well enough to keep my interested. As the characters slowly fought off the demon whilst finding a way to defeat it for good, gradually built toward the conclusion I wasn’t expecting at all. They dabbled with the concept of a happy ending, by doing their absolute best to perform the requirements for the ritual, only for the demon to get the ultimate victory. Now the whole world is playing – obviously being completely oblivious to what’s going on. It’s a sad ending, and if you think about it for a few seconds, you realise just how many unsuspecting innocent people are now involved.

The twist at the end does make the second viewing a different experience, because you know what’s to come. There’s a lot to think about after the film’s main story. It may not be a good horror film in terms of being scary, but it does leave a strong lasting impression.

Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)