Truth Or Dare Is A Mostly Terrible Movie With An Impressively Bonkers Ending

Truth Or Dare Is A Mostly Terrible Movie With An Impressively Bonkers Ending

Blumhouse’s new horror flick Truth or Dare came out last Thursday, and it’s just awful. It’s about a group of friends who are essentially being attacked by a malevolent, sentient game of Truth or Dare. It’s dumb and boring, the characters are terrible, and it’s never, ever scary. But it does have one bright spot: The ending, which is so incredibly stupid, evil, hilarious, and out of place it’s amazing. But don’t watch the movie to see it – just read this.

Lucy Hale does a very bad thing in Truth or Dare.Photo: Universal

Truth Or Dare Is A Mostly Terrible Movie With An Impressively Bonkers Ending

I could spend several hundred words explaining Truth or Dare‘s set-up and plot, but it’s convoluted and confusing so let’s just cut to the chase. The film ends with the two main characters having to make a choice. They failed to stop the possessed game of Truth or Dare from killing all the other players, so either they both die or they get more people to play, and thus extend the game – buying them more time to live.

The whole movie has prepared us to believe they will make the choice to sacrifice themselves. In what looks like a final act of selflessness, the film’s heroine, Olivia (Lucy Hale), films a YouTube video warning people about the game. The video is called “Truth or Dare Curse” and it basically explains what happened in the movie, the rules of the game, and so on. It’s all very noble on her part, warning people to not fall into the same trap she did.

That is, until she asks the viewer of the video the question “Truth or Dare?”

In doing that, Olivia has cursed all the viewers and sucked them into the same deadly game she’s been playing the entire movie. She’s doomed the millions and millions of people watching the video, and the more people watch, the more Olivia’s turn gets pushed further and further back. Countless other people will die while they get to live.

Basically, Truth or Dare ends with the two heroines unleashing a curse on the entire world that can’t be stopped. It’s more or less an act of mass genocide, which they knowingly commit, in order to save themselves.

Truth Or Dare Is A Mostly Terrible Movie With An Impressively Bonkers Ending
The killer game begins. (Photo: Universal)

The killer game begins. Photo: Universal

After a movie that’s so boring and predictable, just going for the full “screw the world” ending made me smile as I was leaving the theatre. I thought, “Damn, that was messed up” – it doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the movie, but I liked it.

This idea of unleashing an evil onto the world at the end of the movie isn’t exactly novel. It’s similar to elements of The Ring, The Cabin in the Woods, Rosemary’s Baby, and several other movies. Plus, you have to think this ending was primarily written to set up a sequel, which, if the entire world has now been cursed, sounds much more interesting than the movie we just watched.

But if Truth or Dare manages to live on its own, it will be a super-cynical, hilariously heavy-handed comment on selfishness, the shallowness of youth, and even the toxicity of internet culture – all lying in wait, hidden in the final few minutes of what is otherwise a bad, by-the-numbers horror flick.

And you know what? Good for you, Truth or Dare. It didn’t make your movie worth watching, but you did earn a bit of my respect.


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