Jeff Wadlow
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What's Hot: Despite the juvenile concept, the film isn't predictable and may remind you of "Final Destination."
A pedestrian children's-game variation on 2000's " Final Destination " and 2002's " The Ring ," "Blumhouse's Truth or Dare" exhibits little of the inspiration one has come to expect from the company.
Obviously inspired by the “Final Destination” franchise (as well as “The Ring” pictures, and, further back, Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”), it’s produced by the Blumhouse factory, which is actually trying to create a brand by promoting it as “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare.”
It’s also refreshing to see a film in which the bulk of the characters get on board with believing a concept as mad as “that truth or dare game is trying to kill us” so quickly, and in Final Destination style, those who don’t play by the rules are promptly dispatched.
Borrowing from the "Final Destination" playbook, the kids soon figure out that the game that uncovered an uncomfortable truth or two (as well as Markie's boyfriend Lucas (Tyler Posey) in a streaking dare) will continue with more sinister consequences in the same order in which they originally played.
Effectively, the premise works like some Frankensteinian combination of The Ring and Final Destination, driven by Mr. Boogie from Sinister (or if you’re being generous, one of the Deadites from Evil Dead II), where people die in a rapid succession, unveil hidden truths that are forgotten after a scene, and work towards a solution that unleashes their problem onto a whole lot more undeserving people.
A ripoff of The Karate Kid, director Jeff Wadlow’s Never Back Down differs in one crucial respect: instead of karate, the top activity at high schools these days seems to be beating the shit out of each other.
Those with a craving for the story would be better off re-watching The Karate Kid than enduring this lackluster re-telling.
A sort of teenage Fight Club, complete with daddy issues, Never Back Down is a slight refinement of the sort of picture that was ascendant in the '80s (think The Karate Kid).
Compare that philosophy with the advice mixed-martial-arts trainer Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou) metes out in Never Back Down, a 21st-century version of The Karate Kid that swaps out karate for Ultimate Fighting-style brawls.
Tyler does not live on planet Earth, but planet Hollywood formula, where the storm clouds of Fight Club hang over the once charming but now seedy landscape of The Karate Kid.
The mixed martial arts flick Never Back Down borrows from other movies almost shamelessly â it's The Karate Kid meets Fight Club by way of Abercrombie & Fitch.
Fight Club (1999)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced Never Back Down (2008)
Plot Themes Characters
A sort of teenage Fight Club, complete with daddy issues, Never Back Down is a slight refinement of the sort of picture that was ascendant in the '80s...
Tyler does not live on planet Earth, but planet Hollywood formula, where the storm clouds of Fight Club hang over the once charming but now seedy landscape of The Karate Kid.
The mixed martial arts flick Never Back Down borrows from other movies almost shamelessly â it's The Karate Kid meets Fight Club by way of Abercrombie & Fitch.
Here he's baby Brad Pitt in "Fight Club" - fatless, kind of dangerous but needy: attention is photosynthetic for him.
"Never Back Down" is a junior version of "Fight Club," only with no movie stars and different moves.
If you combined "The Karate Kid" with "Fight Club," then threw in a dash of "The O.C." and "You Got Served," then beat it with a stick until it was really stupid, you'd have something twice as smart as "Never Back Down."
Of all the movies self-consciously referenced by this pulp-savvy series, who knew that “ Mean Girls ” would yield the most wickedly funny results?
It’s only after she’s busted by her guardian that she finally hangs up the mask, only to find her character dropped into a Mean Girls rip-off so blatant, they may as well have just had her rent that movie and point the camera at her TV.
But the filmmakers run out of script long before the climax, even inserting a "Mean Girls" theme with Mindy being duped by the popular girls at school.
Having renewed her pledge to her guardian - police detective Marcus Williams (Morris Chestnut) - that she was done whacking criminals as Hit-Girl, Mindy ventures into a remake of Mean Girls, where Rachel McAdams' Regina is now Claudia Lee's Brooke.
Compounding his ineptness is his tendency to rip off movies right and left, from “Mean Girls” and “Carrie” to “Rocky IV,” presenting us with a female version of Dolph Lundgren in the person of evil commie Mother Russia (imposing bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina).
This time, Moretz gets to explore the more "girly" and "vulnerable" sides of Mindy, and the result is some of the movie's best moments, both on the superhero and civilian side of things (see: a Mean Girls -style lunchroom showdown).
In the pantheon of recent Blumhouse hits, “Truth or Dare” doesn’t have the savvy commentary of “Get Out” or the meta vibes of “Happy Death Day,” but its eager-to-please concept is infectious.
After last year’s game-changing horror flick Get Out , Blumhouse Productions now faces the unenviable position of attempting to match the style, wit, and class of this dazzling and Oscar-winning masterpiece.
It’s no Get Out-caliber masterpiece; it’s more akin to last year’s gleefully grotesque Happy Death Day (another Blumhouse picture), which provided a deadly spin on Groundhog Day but featured enough humor to mark itself as something new and exciting.
Coming off a milestone 2017 which saw the releases of three box-office smashesJordan Peele's Oscar-winning " Get Out ," M. Night Shyamalan's exceedingly clever "Split," and Christopher Landon's insanely fun "Groundhog Day"-esque horror-comedy " Happy Death Day "Blumhouse unfortunately has chosen the wrong release to shoehorn its brand name into the title.
The company which produced or co-produced such films as Paranormal Activity (2007) and The Purge (2013) — as well as their various sequels — and the wonderfully original Oscar nominee, Get Out (2017), is in familiar territory with its latest, featuring horny coeds who blunder into serious trouble on a spring-break trip to Mexico and bring it back across the border with them.
Truth or Dare is one of the sillier offerings from producer Jason Blum, the crown prince of contemporary American horror (and the man behind hits from Paranormal Activity and Get Out to Insidious and The Purge.)
Putting aside the movie's questionable message for a moment, Never Back Down is compulsively watchable in the same way those old Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicles like Bloodsport and Lionheart were.
It’s no Get Out-caliber masterpiece; it’s more akin to last year’s gleefully grotesque Happy Death Day (another Blumhouse picture), which provided a deadly spin on Groundhog Day but featured enough humor to mark itself as something new and exciting.
Blumhouse may be known for Jordan Peele’s freaky Oscar-winner Get Out, but it’s also responsible for standard frighters like Ouija and Happy Death Day, to which the fun-free but scary enough Truth or Dare compares much more closely.
Coming off a milestone 2017 which saw the releases of three box-office smashesJordan Peele's Oscar-winning " Get Out ," M. Night Shyamalan's exceedingly clever "Split," and Christopher Landon's insanely fun "Groundhog Day"-esque horror-comedy " Happy Death Day "Blumhouse unfortunately has chosen the wrong release to shoehorn its brand name into the title.
The bloody Blumhouse production is clearly designed to build on 2017’s surprise horror hit “Happy Death Day,” and while it doesn’t quite hit the same stride, “Truth or Dare” is still a crowdpleaser that has just enough tension, jump-scares, and twisted deaths to please horror lovers eager for some thrills.
Take for example Jessica Rothe in Happy Death Day, another of Blumhouse’s horror movies, who takes the horror comedy aspect and runs with it.
Putting aside the movie's questionable message for a moment, Never Back Down is compulsively watchable in the same way those old Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicles like Bloodsport and Lionheart were.
With an appealing-enough cast headlined by Lucy Hale (Aria on ABC Family/Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars ) and Violett Beane ( Slash ), with decent supporting work from the likes of Tyler Posey (Scott on MTV’s Teen Wolf ) and Hayden Szeto ( The Edge of Seventeen ), there is nothing so terrible here that a better script couldn’t fix.
For example, annoyingly virginal Olivia (Lucy Hale, of Pretty Little Liars ) has a crush on Lucas (Tyler Posey, of Teen Wolf ), the rather dull boyfriend of Olivia's best friend Markie (Violett Beane, of The Flash ).
Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) plays Olivia, a college student lured away from a Spring Break trip filled with Habitat For Humanity-style servitude to go on a booze-filled south-of-the-border bacchanalian with her best friend Markie (Violett Beane, The Flash), Markie’s boyfriend Lucas (Tyler Posey, Teen Wolf) and a few other housemates and friends.
Obviously inspired by the “Final Destination” franchise (as well as “The Ring” pictures, and, further back, Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”), it’s produced by the Blumhouse factory, which is actually trying to create a brand by promoting it as “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare.”
"Truth or Dare" emulates the masterful "It Follows" with a story about desperate young adults who must quickly pass on a deadly curse to other people to stay alive, accompanied by occasional stereophonic echoes of evil laughter that stalk the soundtrack.
It’s a crass homage, but “Truth or Dare” tips its hat to “It Follows,” where a viral curse must be continually passed along through sex.
It’s a lame, scare-free film that wants really badly to work in the vein of “It Follows,” but has none of the intelligence.
Particularly in “Truth or Dare,” the latest spin on “It Follows,” the horror trope that you pass on your curse to somebody new just so you can survive.
Taking a cue from the far superior It Follows, screenwriters Jillian Jacobs, Michael Reisz, Christopher Roach, and the film’s director, Jeff Wadlow, attempt to turn a simple parlor game into a death-dealing, supernatural, viral terror.
A cross between the sadistic challenges of Saw , the grisly deaths of Final Destination , and the viral evil of It Follows , the Jeff Wadlow-directed film is far from an original entry to the genre, but it’s full of effective scares.
Copy themes from violent xenophobic travel thrillers such as Paradise Lost, Hostel or The Ruins.
Like the young people in the entertainingly gooey 2008 horror movie “The Ruins,” the group of college friends in “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare” discover too late that their Mexican vacation has left them with a nasty infection.
…prolonged, manic smiles that echo the absolute worst of the likes of Smile, Truth or Dare or The Shining…
After graduating from B-level action blow-outs like Commando and Raw Deal to the likes of Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the 1996 action throwback Eraser felt and played like a big budget variation on the kinds of films that propelled Schwarzenegger to stardom in the first place.
A pedestrian children's-game variation on 2000's " Final Destination " and 2002's " The Ring ," "Blumhouse's Truth or Dare" exhibits little of the inspiration one has come to expect from the company.
The company which produced or co-produced such films as Paranormal Activity (2007) and The Purge (2013) — as well as their various sequels — and the wonderfully original Oscar nominee, Get Out (2017), is in familiar territory with its latest, featuring horny coeds who blunder into serious trouble on a spring-break trip to Mexico and bring it back across the border with them.
Truth or Dare is one of the sillier offerings from producer Jason Blum, the crown prince of contemporary American horror (and the man behind hits from Paranormal Activity and Get Out to Insidious and The Purge.)
Paranormal Activity may have put Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions on the map way back in 2009, but the company’s crowning achievement undoubtedly came last year, with the arrival of its two biggest hits to date in Get Out and Split .
While Jason Blum’s low-budget house of horrors has spooked up some major hits critically and commercially – including the likes of Insidious , Paranormal Activity , Split , and Get Out – Truth or Dare is likely to be a footnote in the studio’s history.
The horror film “Truth or Dare” carries a longer title as well — “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare,” after the production company behind it, a horror factory that churned out all those “Insidious” and “Paranormal Activity” sequels.
It’s no Get Out-caliber masterpiece; it’s more akin to last year’s gleefully grotesque Happy Death Day (another Blumhouse picture), which provided a deadly spin on Groundhog Day but featured enough humor to mark itself as something new and exciting.
Coming off a milestone 2017 which saw the releases of three box-office smashesJordan Peele's Oscar-winning " Get Out ," M. Night Shyamalan's exceedingly clever "Split," and Christopher Landon's insanely fun "Groundhog Day"-esque horror-comedy " Happy Death Day "Blumhouse unfortunately has chosen the wrong release to shoehorn its brand name into the title.
The game’s repetition quickly gets tiresome, which is interesting given how last year’s “Groundhog Day” horror knockoff “Happy Death Day” — one of Blumhouse’s good movies, along with “Get Out” and “Split” — was nothing but repetition.
Turns out the game has been cursed by a demon who can transform people into comical Snapchat distortions of Jack Nicholson's Joker from "Batman" with glowing red eyes.
Oh, and everyone around you will sport that “Joker smile” from Tim Burton’s “Batman.”
Meanwhile, the resemblance between Sean Faris and Tom Cruise circa Risky Business is uncanny.
This is the kind of film that, not too long ago, would’ve been the kind of horror picture that could be released in theaters and earned quite a bit of money, like Jeff Wadlow’s Truth or Dare , which this film reminded me of at times.