Truth or Dare--My Take on the movie with Spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: Olivia and her friends play Truth or Dare with a stranger not realizing they have been initiated into a supernatural game.

At some point or another, we’ve all indulged in a little game of Truth or Dare, especially as kids. It did seem such a harmless game at that time, after all, the weights of the truths weren’t dangerous than the secrets adults carry. And dares? Pretty innocent as well.

Now when grown-ups play this game, obviously the risks are high.

Truth or Dare shows exactly how much. After watching this movie, you will think twice about playing this maniacal game.

TRUTH OR DARE Movie Plot 

The movie begins with a teenage girl entering a supermarket and being asked by the clerk: truth or dare. We see her whimpering and in the next instant, she lights a woman on fire. The teenager yells her apologies and runs away, never to be caught even though there are cameras installed, eyewitnesses and anyway, she’s just a college kid. Does she really possess the resources to run away from the law? The answer is yes.

Cut to Olivia, a sensitive soul who loves doing charity work and doesn’t want to go on spring break and rather build houses for the unfortunate. Her friends drag her to Mexico and we see a montage of them hanging around, pouting and taking selfies.

On the last day of spring break, we see Olivia covering up for Markie’s indiscretions. Markie is in a relationship with Lucas, who surprise, surprise Olivia has a crush on as well. Evidently, everyone in the group can see that except for Markie.

Feeling lonely, she wanders to the bar, gets hit on by a needy classmate and is saved by a guy called Carter who keeps advising her that she could tell him to piss off. Later, we learn that Olivia should have done just that.

After spending some time together, Olivia decides she’s ready to do whatever Carter asks for her, even go drinking at a “place” he knows somewhere in a desolate area. The six friends barely put up an argument and are ready to do whatever Olivia asks them. They go to the old building and turns out, it is some sort of dilapidated church.  

The friends set up chairs that were apparently already there for them and Carter insists they play Truth or Dare. Again, the friends readily agree when Olivia says she would love to. Childish or not, they have to play this game because Olivia told them to.

One by one they take their turn and Olivia is asked if she would pick the world if it was about to be destroyed or her friends. She picks random people because she would be saving millions instead of six. Now that is quite a moral dilemma. Olivia does answer immediately although the question does require some careful consideration. Could you live in a world without your loved ones but hailed as a hero? Or live with the people you love only to carry the guilt of being responsible for millions of deaths?

When it’s Carter’s turn, he chooses Truth and ruefully admits that he lied to them and initiated them into a supernatural game. He insists the game is real.

The friends think he’s nuts and head back home but when one by one they start to die, they realize they are in deep trouble. They think they find a solution when they decide to always pick the truth but apparently the game has rules that weren’t made clear before. After two truths, a dare must be chosen.

One of the friends is forced to walk on the rooftop, drunk. The friends run around the building with a mattress and when the friend eventually falls, she escapes without a scratch or a bruise.

The friends' unity is broken when more truths are revealed. Markie distances herself from Olivia when she announces publicly that she repeatedly cheats on Lucas. Lucas reveals to Olivia that he does care for her.

Meanwhile, they get a hold of a girl who played the game and she is the same from the opening scene. She reveals that she was dared to shoot Olivia and that her friends trashed the mission which is why the demonic entity cannot be contained.

Everyone loves Olivia so much, that one of them takes a bullet for her and is killed. Few tears are wasted on her sacrifice as the game intensifies. Now it’s no longer about drinking but putting them in harm’s way.

To show her sacrificial nature, Olivia keeps choosing Dare so her friends wouldn’t have to be forced to pick it. She is dared to be intimate with Lucas who in turn is forced to be truthful about his feelings. Turns out he really is in love with Markie.

They call but she doesn’t pick up and over here Olivia confides in Lucas about a terrible secret she’s been hiding from her best friend regarding her father. This is revealed when Olivia is forced to tell the truth.

Markie’s father had been drunk on the night he died and made a move on Olivia who had told him she would tell her friend what he did even when he begs her not to. She also tells him to drop dead which he takes it very seriously because Olivia uttered those words.

TRUTH OR DARE Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

Markie is enraged and at this point, the friendship seems destroyed. Nevertheless, the friends put their differences aside for the sake of survival and find a mute nun who reveals through her writing that she had summoned the demon when she was younger to protect herself. At that time she and her friends had been playing the game and the demon had possessed it. The only way to stop him had been for the nun to cut off her tongue and seal it in a small pot. However, Carter- revealed to be Sam, accidentally breaks the pot when he trashes the place and now needs to cut off his tongue to stop the game.

Sam is found and dragged to the church. He is made to recite the incantation but before he can cut off his tongue, the demon cheats and asks Lucas to kill either Olivia or Markie. The demon plays dirty and Lucas has no choice but to kill Sam. Since he couldn’t kill either girl, he has to punish himself by slitting his throat.

Olivia tricks the demon into joining the game and he reveals that only Sam could have stopped the game and now she had no choice but to either keep playing or initiate more members.

Olivia has had enough of being nice and answers her earlier question about moral dilemma differently. She makes a YouTube video and narrates the incidents that led her to play this terrible game. In the end, she asks them: Truth or Dare. Everyone who watches it, instantly is a player.

Hopefully, YouTube takes down the video….

The movie is a fun watch and quite reminiscent of the Final Destination movies and all the teen horror movies made in the late nineties and early two thousand. The pace is strong, the acting adequate, although the title could have been changed to ‘We all do whatever Olivia tells us to.’

It’s nice and heartwarming to see a friendship this strong but when one friend is making a sacrifice, don’t you even shed a tear for them? The friends were dropping like flies but they were barely missed by the others.

Yes, the game was spooking them but still…

And what of their families? Only one guy had a father and Markie’s father is shown in a photograph. Doesn’t anyone have any family or cousins on anyone else who could be concerned for them?

Or are we to believe that making friends has become far more important than retaining familial relationships?

Apart from these little complaints, the movie was enjoyable and I wouldn’t mind it watching again for the fun of it.

Scare scale: 3/5