After a week of a major awesome mega movie in the form of Avengers: Infinity War, I was a bit wondering what we can expect to see this week Apparently the Indonesian cinema chains decided to show a horror movie that was already playing in US cinemas since mid April 2018. When I saw the thriller to the film few weeks ago, I sensed it would be an interesting horror movie. So we thought it would be nice to see the film (despite my wife's hesitance to see a horror movie). Hence we bought the tickets in Kuningan City, which proved to be a little challenge of its own to find a nice nearby cinema since many of them still playing Avengers: Infinity War. And to my surprise, when I peeked at other studios playing that movie, they were still packed with audience. WOW! Anyway, let us move on with the film now.
Brief Story Line
A group of college students went on a spring break holiday in Mexico where one of them named Olivia (Lucy Hale - Sorority Wars, Pretty Little Liars TV series etc) met with a mysterious guy named Carter (Landon Liboiron - Hemlock Grove TV series etc) who asked her to join him for drinks in an abandoned church. Olivia asked her best friend Markie (Violett Beane - The Flash TV series etc) and Markie's boyfriend Lucas (Tyler Posey - Teen Wolf TV series etc) to come along. The rest of their friends also joined her, including Brad (Hayden Szeto - The Edge of Seventeen etc), Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk - House at the End of the Street, Riddick etc) and his girlfriend Penelope (Sophia Ali) with last but not least, Ronnie (Sam Lerner - Project Almanac etc).
While having drinks, to make things interesting, Carter asked Olivia and friends to play a game of Truth or Dare, where each would be given turn to choose between answering the truth of any queries or taking a dare which would usually be some crazy/fun things to do. After finishing the game rather abruptly, all of them went back home. This would be the time when things got to become weird as the game seemed to be following them. And one by one, starting from Olivia beginning to see people forcing them to play truth or dare. And when they refused to play, they would become victim of the game.
So could they survive this game? Could they find out why they could be "cursed" into playing the game? Find them all in this pretty decent horror movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well, this movie was quite what I expected. It was a horror movie with the focus of giving the usual surprises/shocking sound effects to give the audience the scare. I actually thought that it resembled a bit of another hit horror movie Final Destination which spawned into several sequels. The resemblance was due to the fact that the movie's cast were both teenagers and one by one they would be victim of scary death which would be anyone's guess on how it would happen.
Personally I think that this movie lacked a bit in making the horrible death scenes. Yes one or two were pretty well done, but others were not really great. But in general, it was pretty satisfying and my wife and I were able to enjoy the film. Beginning of the movie though felt a little bit slow, but it gained momentum from the first victim's moment. Surprisingly of all the characters in here, my favorite was actually Brad whom I felt was having his character quite properly developed. Meanwhile the main character of Olivia was pretty standard and a bit unconvincing as the supposed heroine. I never saw her performance prior to this, but my wife knew her from Pretty Little Liars series which she had completed all 7 seasons!
As a horror movie, which apparently having supernatural element and thus classified as supernatural horror genre, it was quite OK but not too scary. The idea of making a simple game of Truth or Dare was rather original. The effects done on some of the people were pretty good, but other than that, there were no huge special effects. Be reminded that this is one of those very low budget movie aimed to get the maximum profit from scaring the audience (which seemed not to bad as its box office till now was > 10 times its original budget). Btw, just like most of these kind of teenagers horror movies, the critics just hate them. But I think the people who saw the movie in the theater with us last night were able to enjoy it. This is certainly not the calibre of smart horror movies like the previous one we saw A Quiet Place, but it was pretty enjoyable nonetheless. My wife screamed few times as well on some of the scenes.
The ending of this movie may not be to the liking of all, but to us, we felt it was quite smart (though a bit twisted). To those looking for a not too bad horror movie with good looking young cast, a little similarity to Final Destination movies, combined with some supernatural thing, then this could be an option. Especially if you have seen Avengers: Infinity War multiple times and want to experience something different. However, do not expect to be having mind blown or leaving the theater with a great sense of satisfaction. This is the kind of movie to be just enjoyed without over thinking. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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