Horror movie survival Randy Meeks style: Truth or Dare

This week, we are going for a recent horror movie to explore under the Randy Meeks’ lens with Blumhouse’s supernatural horror movie Truth or Dare.

Production company Blumhouse has become a big name in the horror genre, with movies like Insidious, Split, Paranormal Activity, Get Out, and most recently the Halloween reboot. As you can see, Blumhouse has a variety of horror movies in its catalog, and one of its most recent projects was Truth or Dare, released earlier this year.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow, Truth or Dare has been criticized for “not being scary” and falling into various clichés, but all in all it can be an enjoyable movie: you won’t have to worry about jump-scares or disgusting creatures, so take it as a sort of “break” from the genre without leaving it all behind. And it turns out that Randy’s rules sort of bend in this case, which made it more entertaining to watch.

Truth or Dare in a Nutshell

A group of friends travel to México for one last vacation together before they head to college. There, they meet a stranger who convinces them to play “truth or dare”. Turns out that once the game starts, an evil force is awakened and all those involved are forced to expose their deepest secrets and complete dares that make them confront their fears (and a secret or two). In short: tell the truth or die, do the dare or die, stop playing and you die.

Now, friendly reminder on Randy’s rules: you can never have sex, you can never drink or do drugs, and never (ever) under any circumstances say “I’ll be right back”. Two of these apply to Truth or Dare but in some cases the rules take a twist.

Rule: You Can Never Drink or Do Drugs

Like any other group of friends on “one last vacation together,” there was a lot of alcohol involved. When they meet the aforementioned stranger, half the group is already drunk and in the mood to continue partying, although most of them were unsure about following a complete stranger to an unknown place but hey, in the end that’s what they did.

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Once they arrive at the ruins of a mission, there’s more alcohol and so the game begins. So, had they not been drunk, they definitely wouldn’t have agreed to what this guy was offering. Not that they would have gone back to their hotels to sleep, but they would have saved their lives and the rest of the movie wouldn’t have happened.

But the damage is done and now they are deep into this evil version of the good ol’ “truth or dare”. Here’s where the rule takes a turn: Randy says that if you don’t drink nor do drugs, you will survive. In this case, it’s the opposite.

When it’s Penelope’s turn, she is forced to choose dare (“two truths, one dare” because why not), and so she has to drink a full bottle of vodka while walking along the edge of the roof of her house. In order to live, she has to drink, otherwise she will die because she didn’t complete her dare.

On the other hand, had she had control over her drinking prior to the events in the movie, her dare would have been different, as it is seen (and implied by her friends) that she has a drinking problem, and the evil force controlling the game wants to expose everyone’s darkest side.

I wonder what Randy would think about this.

Rule: You Can Never Have Sex

Once more, the rule takes a twist.

Olivia is dared to sleep with Lucas, her best friend’s boyfriend, and whose first turn in the game (having chosen truth) was about confessing his feelings for Olivia. Love triangle between friends, of course. Anyway, just like with the previous rule, Olivia had to sleep with Lucas or she would have died.

Sorry, Randy. Things got a bit crazy here.

Conclusion

Truth or Dare is one of those cases where, had they applied the rules, the movie wouldn’t have happened. But hey, I need a subject to analyze and build theories around, so let’s say they would have been dumb enough to go to some ruins with a stranger: the rules would have taken a dramatic turn, and following them would have killed them.

Watching this one under the Randy Meeks lens was an interesting ride.

Seen Truth or Dare? Think the Blumhouse movie applies to Randy’s rules? Let the other horror heads know what you think in the comment section below.