Summary
- Movies like Truth or Dare make viewers question what they would do in a dangerous party game scenario.
- The film highlights the theme of betrayal and secrets among friends, causing physical and mental suffering.
- Alex and Maddie must trust each other to survive the game, ultimately choosing loyalty over betrayal.
Truth or Dare (2017) often gets confused with the Blumhouse movie of the same that came out a year later, and while that film may have slightly better production values, the Syfy TV movie was the first to the table with the idea of the classic kids' game turned horror film. Movies about party games going wrong are always a fun idea because of just how relatable they are. Playing a party game that isn't going well is a universal experience, whether because someone's taking it too seriously or the rules haven't been explained properly - however, in real life, no game would be likely to go this wrong!
Horror movies like Truth or Dare twist the dial on the worst possible scenario that could happen with these games, making them the type of movie that encourages the audience to wonder what they would do in a similar situation. Like any good board game movie or party game film, Truth or Dare features a way to "win" and it's the tension of wondering if Maddie (Brytni Sarpy), Alex (Cassie Scerbo), and their friends can figure out a solution before they're all killed that makes the end of Truth or Dare particularly thrilling as well as frightening.
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Maddie And Alex Meet Donna Boone
The Only Survivor Of The Previous Game Gives The Girls Advice
The game of "truth or dare" in the film lasts three rounds, according to the rules laid out earlier in the movie by the supernatural warning displayed on an old television for the group of friends. By the end of round two, two of their friends are dead and the rest have either been severely maimed, or forced to reveal an unpleasant truth to one another. This is where the opening sequence of the horror movie finally comes back into play.
In the beginning of the movie, a group of teens in 1983 play truth or dare in the same house where Alex and Maddie are currently experiencing supernatural events. Donna Boone (Taylor Lyons) is forced to watch her friend jump off the roof of the house and then covers her head in a baking soda and water paste mixture, followed by a bucket of acid. Donna apparently lived through her ordeal because Maddie and Alex go to visit her after they learn she was the only survivor of the night.
She offers the advice that every participant should share their dare, blunting the overall effects of the danger and, hopefully, outsmarting the malevolent force.
Donna (Heather Langenkamp), now much older, explains to the girls that there's a demon in that house, and it's running the game they've all been forced to play. The demon feeds off their collective fear and pain and to finish the game, everyone who started that round will need to return to the house and finish it. She offers the advice that every participant should share their dare, blunting the overall effects of the danger and, hopefully, outsmarting the malevolent force.
The Rest Of The Friends Lose Their Turns
Alex And Maddie Are The Last Players Standing
Now back in the house with the other four remaining players, Alex and Maddie share Donna's advice, which is at first somewhat successful. A dare for Tyler (Mason Dye) to drink a liquid poison is beaten when everyone drinks a small portion, only getting mildly sick. However, their victory is short-lived. Luke (Ricardo Hoyos) is killed when he's forced to rob a convenience store, Tyler kills himself in a game of Russian Roulette, Holt (Harvey Guillen) is run over by a car, and in a particularly gruesome death, Jessie (Alexxis Lemire) is tied to a pipe and devoured by co*ckroaches.
As her friends are dying one by one, Alex comes to realize that everyone is being punished for a past wrong of theirs or a personal issue or obsession. Each truth or dare was somehow related to something the victim had done in their past, often something they regretted, starting with the first "Truth" where Maddie is forced to admit that she slept with Tyler, Alex's boyfriend.
Alex Has To Decide If She Wants To Kill Maddie And Win The Game
As the only two left, Maddie and Alex decide to share their final dare and escape the game. The dare comes from a phone call that instructs the girls to remove seven body parts between them. The girls remove an eyelash, one hair, a fingernail, then an earlobe, then a finger, and then a toe, going back and forth as the amputations get more gruesome. Finally, Alex chops off Maddie's foot with a cleaver. Having seemingly defeated the truth or dare demon, Alex and Maddie drive to the hospital to fix their wounds as best they can.
Despite everything they've been through, the two friends have not reckoned with the betrayal of Maddie sleeping with Alex's boyfriend and there's been lingering resentment all film.
As they are driving, the GPS dictates a final dare specifically for Alex, saying, "kill her", referring to Maddie. Despite everything they've been through, the two friends have not reckoned with the betrayal of Maddie sleeping with Alex's boyfriend and there's been lingering resentment all film. So there's a tense feeling that Alex may decide that she should just kill Maddie and end the game. Maddie even agrees and begs her friend to complete the game.
Instead, Alex intentionally crashes the car with both of them in it. In the final moments of Truth or Dare, two people can be heard breathing in the wreckage, implying Alex and Maddie survived the crash, and have thus won the game.
Cassie Scerbo, who plays Alex, is a Syfy channel veteran, also appearing as Nova in four of the six Sharknado movies.
The Real Meaning Of Truth Or Dares Ending
Everyone Who Plays The Game Is Hiding A Secret
Secrets are a theme of Truth or Dare and while the eight people who enter the haunted house at the beginning of the movie are ostensibly friends, it quickly becomes clear that they don't know as much about one another as they previously thought. The secrets they've kept from one another and the lies they tell are exposed throughout the game of truth or dare as everyone is forced to suffer not only physically, but mentally, by the knowledge some hidden part of themselves has been exposed.
Alex and Maddie only survive their ordeal after they decide to trust each other. In their second-to-last dare, each girl takes turns removing a body part from their friend in increasingly painful ways, always assuming the other will be willing to have a part removed next.
Then, in the final dare, Alex refuses to kill her friend and decides that they will die together if they have to, and therefore successfully completes the game. Donna Boone is alive and well enough after her experience in 1983, implying that Alex and Maddie can put their ordeal in Truth or Dare behind them and move on with their lives.
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