A group of near college graduates decides to head to Mexico for their final Spring-Break. Olivia, the primary protagonist and good girl of the group, tries to let loose by joining "Carter", a guy she met at a bar, to play a game of truth or dare with her friends. Unknowingly to the group, Carter was trapped in a life or death game, only being able to escape by trading his place in the game for all of them. Initially, the friends think this is some bad joke, however after visions begin to appear to them, they learn they really do need to play the game or die. Love triangles, revealing closeted sexuality, and dangerous stunts whittle down their sanity as they try to find a way to escape the game. They learn from an old Mexican witch (the one that first summoned the curse) that the only way to end it is to find Carter again, forcing him to read some magic words, cut out his tongue, and place it in a magic pot, sealing away the demon Calyx that tortures them. The final three friends alive, Olivia, Markie, and Lucas bring Carter to the chapel where the curse began, however just before they can contain the demon, it kills Lucas and Carter. Olivia tricks the demon into the game, however, it is of no use. Calyx reveals that Carter was the only way of stopping him, meaning the only way for Markie and Olivia to live is to pass on the game to others. Olivia makes a video in the chapel and posts it on Youtube, challenging who knows how many people, and bringing them all into the game in a trade for her and Markie's lives.

The characters are all quickly and somewhat reasonably differentiated from each other. Olivia is the good girl, Markie is the class horror movie hoe, Lucas is the good guy, Brad is the gay one, Tyson is a jerk, and Penelope is the whipped girlfriend of Tyson. Writing out those may make it seem like there isn't a lot to the characters, and that is true, but it does have more than the counselors in a Friday movie, for example.

Ronnie, the biggest douchebag in the film with little screen time, was hilarious. He is not just a cliche frat dude but goes so far as to feel like a parody of it. He is constantly trying to seduce any woman around him and is quick to bail at any conflict.

The opening montage/credits scene was interesting to me. It was stylized to feel like a very cliche Spring-Break montage, being quite the jump from the woman being set on fire in the first scene. I feel like it made the characters feel very normal, and built on their relationships with each other without spending a long time in the movie developing them. Very efficient.

The story seemed to have a huge plot hole. Why didn't they just always go with a truth? At first, I thought they would have just said something to the effect of "you are out of truths to tell" or something like that, and I would have thought that was very stupid. When Penelope asked for a truth and it said no, I was ready to go off about how stupid it was. Instead, though, it worked just fine with the plot. They explained later that the demon just latches itself to any game, and the game that awoke him this time was not truth or dare, but two truths and a dare. The rule is that if two people say a truth in a row, the next person must choose dare. I feel like this is completely believable, and works around this problem.

The story between Markie's dad and Olivia feels strong enough to believably make Olivia choose dare. Markie is clearly an unstable person and loved her dad a lot. Originally this seemed like another dumb plot hole, but I think having Markie almost kill herself showed that Olivia's apprehension was well-founded, and Markie forgiving her felt equally understandable. Markie was the one who made the first move to patch up her and Olivia's friendship early in the movie, and this seems like fair character progression.

The movie always looked fine, and the acting was equally fine. Nothing groundbreaking or especially noteworthy in either respect, but no real complaints either.

Brad and Penelope are token characters to the extreme. Brad is an Asian gay man, and Penelope has darker skin, and that is their personality. Brad being gay is what every moment of him being on screen is about. His truth is coming out to his dad, and his dare is to pull a gun on his dad and make him beg for his life, the entire time his dad thinks it is about the fact he is gay. Penelope has no personality whatsoever beyond being Tyson's girlfriend, so much that the movie makes fun of this itself. Meanwhile, Olivia is the good girl who didn't want to go on the trip, she then has a chip on her shoulder because her best friend Markie forced her to. Beyond that, she is in love with Lucas, Markie's boyfriend, and seems to be the final straw leading to Markie's dad killing himself. Markie is (taken from my notes) an "dumb evil hoe". She is constantly cheating on her boyfriend but is making some amount of an attempt to stop doing it. Her dad recently killed himself and she was very close to him. She is in love with Lucas, and despite learning that Olivia has repeatedly lied to her (not in a malicious way but still has), at the end of the movie she still puts her life on the line and trusts her. Lucas is in love with Markie but is also curious about how he feels toward Olivia. Throughout the movie, he is forced to choose between the two and in the end, still chooses Markie despite learning how she has cheated on him multiple times (Lucas is a little romance centered but still has more to go on than Brad or Penelope). Tyson is actually pretty interesting to me. He is clearly a macho man and frat boy much like minor character Ronnie, but he is still more contained. He seems to be the only one who was able to realize that Olivia has feelings for Lucas, he is in school to be a doctor and currently falsifies prescriptions for students to get the medication they don't need. I believe both of his parents are also doctors so we even are given background info as to why he is becoming a doctor, and he is dating Penelope. Tyson is the only character whose actual program in school we are made aware of from what I can remember. This is what we know about Brad and Penelope. Brad is gay, his dad is a cop and doesn't know he is gay. His dad is paying for his schooling but as a deal, he needs to visit his Mom often. Penelope is dating Tyson, she kissed Olivia and claimed she may also be into girls. That is it. I just feel like the fact they gave the two visible minority characters so little is a bit disappointing.

The film has some serious tone problems, which I am finding to be pretty common in horror. The most outlandish to me were both involving Markie. First, Markie gets extremely upset when Olivia is dared to sleep with Lucas. This being a thing already is so obviously just to fill the steamy sex scene box on the horror movie checklist and that is annoying enough, but Markie being so extremely mad about it despite cheating on her boyfriend herself, whereas this is a do or die situation, feels very strange. Everyone is aware that the game is real at this point, and understand the 2 truths and a dare rule. They should all be thankful the only thing they need to do here is sleep with each other. That is a huge win and means they get another 2 safe truths. The next time is when Olivia tells Markie about how her dad assaulted her, and she told him he should die, and then he killed himself. Markie stomps off and talks about how she will never trust Olivia again, and then immediately forgives her right after, and is now in commando mode. Feels very off and I wish there were more ramifications from this really intense secret that she couldn't tell Markie no matter what.

Now we get into the plot holes that still remain. 1. At what point does the truth or dare control swap over to Calyx? They begin with truths and dares among each other, why does Calyx suddenly get to choose them? Could they not fulfill the truths and dares by challenging each other? 2. Calyx does one of those switcheroos where you ask for a dare, and the dare is to tell a truth. I hate that and feel like the writers got stuck in a corner and had no way to get themselves out other than to do this stupid move. 3. Why is there so much time between some challenges, and so much less in others? They are able to drive all the way to Mexico, and confront Carter, and march him up to the chapel, AND start the ritual before any challenges are given, then in the chapel, Carter is asked, only a few minutes later Olivia is asked. I think it would have been easier to have two truths be asked during the trip to get Carter and then have a dare forced in the chapel. 4. Why did Lucas choose dare in the chapel? The last challenge was a dare if I remember correctly, that being Olivia dared to tell Markie about what happened with her dad. If that is true, then there would be two truths left before another forced dare, giving them ample time to get Carter to cut out his tongue and finish the ritual. 5. Olivia should not have done the video, and it doesn't even really make sense. She somehow has enough upload in the middle of a Mexican desert on her phone to post a Youtube video, but even then, why does that work? It seems pretty clear they need the next victims to be in the chapel with them, or else Carter could have done the same trick easily. Furthermore, this should have only freed Olivia, but it seems to have been used to free Markie too. We know this because, despite Carter freeing himself, his friend (the one that set the lady on fire at the beginning of the movie) was still in the game. Did she need to be there to be freed? That would be a fair answer but it is never explained and it frustrates me. Finally, it doesn't make sense for Olivia to take the easy way out. In this entire film, she has been the good girl the entire time and now she is willing to have her and her friend survive and kill countless amounts of people to do so? Just feels silly to me. The ending was very bad.

The writing in the film is not very good. Specifically, the reliance on being hip with the kids due to the constant references to Snapchat, Facebook, Youtube, and Google was annoying to hear. Beyond that, the characters often feel like they make somewhat strange decisions, or say strange things.

Truth or Dare (2018) is perhaps the most mediocre horror film I have seen yet. It doesn't push itself to try new things, it doesn't have noteworthy writing, characters, shots, or overall idea. It squanders its visual minority characters by doing nothing with them, and ends with a confusing move that feels like it came out of nowhere, and leads to the most sympathetic character looking evil. Even the villain is plain and oftentimes boring, the design of those possessed by him being strange and awkward without any scare value. All that being said, Truth or Dare is a horror movie. It goes through the usual horror movie progression, and for fans of horror movies, or fans of movies in general, I feel like it can be a couple of hours of distraction without feeling like a complete waste of time. Definitely watch Creep 2 first though.