All things considered, 2018 horror film Truth or Dare is not particularly good cinema, but it seems to have just enough good ideas to pull through. It does not represent great entertainment, but it is enjoyable more often than it is not. As such it comes with my very modest recommendation. There are so many better options for your time and money, but it is not entirely a waste of them. Make of all that what you will.

University student Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) is dragged into a spring break vacation in Mexico, where she and her friends (Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Hayden Szeto, and others) are tempted to enter into a game of ‘truth or dare’ by charming stranger Carter (Landon Liboiron). When they return home to the USA, they find that the game has not ended and a supernatural force is demanding they continue to play or die.

Blumhouse has firmly established itself as America’s most consistently watchable production companies for horror cinema. While they have been exceptions – their dreadful reboot of television series Fantasy Island comes to mind – most of their films have enjoyed at least a reasonable level of quality. It is certainly the case with Truth or Dare: the basic concept is a little ridiculous, and its cast of college age characters are not particularly developed, but the performances are solid and director Jeff Wadlow has a decent visual eye. (Ironically it is Wadlow who also directed 2020’s Fantasy Island movie, although to be fair the key problems in that film were in concept and screenplay rather than direction.)

There are some moderate issues with pacing: the film runs 100 minutes, but honestly feels about 20 minutes longer than that. The various ‘truth or dare’ sequences are also a little low-key compared to audience expectations. Events kick off in a particularly violent fashion, and honestly never quite reach that extent again. What is presented is effective enough for the film’s purposes, but the inconsistency does linger.

More impressive is the film’s climax, which is far bleaker than one might typically expect and represents the high point of the film’s creativity. This counts for a lot: the film may slightly test the audience’s patience in the middle, but by winding up in such a satisfying fashion means they exit on perhaps better terms than while they watched through it. There are still some highlights and nicely unexpected scripting choices in that central bulk of the film – there simply are not quite enough of them.

Plus, in the end, the concept is a pretty neat one. Truth or Dare may be a rather juvenile game around which to base a horror film, but the dares do lead to some tense moments and the demands for truth turn out to be far more destructive and harrowing for the participants than one might expect. This is by no means a horror classic, and is likely to be forgotten by the mainstream – assuming it hasn’t been already – but in a broad and forgiving sense it does its job and entertains a target audience.