A movie made for the Riverdale-age but poorly executed with laughable plot-holes and an overall disappointing “horror” film. I honestly dare you to go and watch it!
I have never been a fan of horror, not because I am a big scaredy-cat or have a high pitched scream when the right jump-scare gets me, but because I lost my love of it. Horror, along the way, took a weird turn away from my childhood sneaky viewings of ‘Chucky’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, enjoyable franchises like ‘Scream’, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and ‘Final Destination’ were crowd pleasers when I was in my late-teens and I sort of peaked with ‘Paranormal Activity’ as I hit adulthood. I remember once trying to watch a ‘Saw’ film, and it genuinely lasted 7 minutes before I was putting it back in the envelope and sending it back to the DVD-mail order company (do you remember those?) So here I was… my first foray into Horror for such a long time… Don’t worry everyone, this will not make me fall back in love with it.
So ‘Truth or Dare’ becomes the 4th movie of this name in 5 years (if you don’t believe me… look it up) that uses the classic party-game that is surely going to pull in the university population who will be drawn in by the bright pink branding and close-up shot of ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Lucy Hale on all of the posters. Hale plays Olivia, a seemingly sweet college student, who is tricked into giving up her volunteering trip overseas to join her friends on their last Spring Break. We meet the friends, and they immediately become a viewers guess-list for which one will be bumped off first. We have a nice diverse mix of personalities, but it doesn’t quite tick all the boxes in today’s modern requirements for horror ensembles. We have alcoholic Penny, gay son-of-a-cop Brad, privileged doctor-to-be Tyson, and pervy loner Ronnie complementing Olivia, her best mate Markie and love-triangle completer Lucas.
Seemingly ridiculous plot exposition sends them to a derelict mission in Mexico to play Truth or Dare that spirals into a deadly game when they return home. Frankly, hilarious Snapchat-filter to be CGI turns many characters into a demonic face that taunts our protagonists and we clearly discover that both Olivia and Markie are just horrendous people. By the time they’ve had their 33rd fallout over a secret (okay I might be exaggerating a bit), I think my own eyes hurt from constantly rolling to the back of my head. A distinct lack of any gore, and painful plot developments including “he dared me to sleep with him” brought out huge laughs amongst the cinema crowd… Pretty sure we were supposed to be watching a horror and not a comedy.
Anyway, the narrative gets genuinely lost in itself, so you are left with a frankly deplorable ending (and featuring some horrendous green-screen uses) that honestly shows the lack of faith I feel they all must have had in the film’s success.
So overall, in probably my most vitriolic review so far for Geektown, I am giving this a 1 star, because I don’t think I can give it any lower. I cannot do any more puns on the title and rather than daring you to go and see it, I just wouldn’t bother… Go and watch something a little more genre-satisfying instead.
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