Truth or Dare

Stars: David Oakes, David Sterne, Florence Hall, Jack Gordon, Jason Maza, Jennie Jacques, Liam Boyle, Tom Kane

Director: Robert Heath

How about a low-budget shocker in which a bunch of young people accept an invitation to a birthday party at a stately home only to end up in an isolated cabin forced to face torture and worse?

Hardly sounds groundbreaking, does it?

Think Cabin in the Woods or any of the legions of similar pictures.

This lackluster low-budget British horrorflick has little to add to the genre. Matthew McGuchans less than innovative screenplay begins with college friends celebrating the end of term getting very, very drunk. Then, what purports to be a harmless game of truth or dare ends with a nerdy student killing himself.

Fast forward a year and the surviving party members end up at the mercy of the dead mans soldier brother Oakes and this time their game of truth or dare has lethal consequences

Heath (director of the well-received Sus) does a competent enough job as do his cast but given a blend of dull dialogue, a plot whose holes could form a largish net to trap the killer and the less than compelling screenplay, the result is a minor, rather nasty and easy to forget shocker destined to make a fast traverse to DVD.

Alan Frank

UK 2012. UK Distributor: Showbox Media Group Ltd. Colour.
91 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 03 Aug 2012