Creepy smile: Sophia Ali plays Penelope Amari in Truth or Dare.

Truth or Dare was a missed opportunity for the usually reliable Blumhouse Productions, which has brought us a respectable amount of solid to great titles, such as the Oscar-winning Get Out and the Paranormal Activity and Purge franchises.

With a premise that at least promises a lot of gleeful horror silliness, a la the Final Destination franchise in which “Death” itself kills teens in the wackiest and goriest ways, Truth or Dare uses the gimmick of a supernatural, deadly version of popular party game “truth or dare” without exploiting it to its full ghoulish potential.

The film instead feeds us a soapy teen drama of the most generic kind, sprinkling it with half-hearted thrills that lack any genuine scares and uniqueness. Had the characters and drama been more compelling, the movie might have worked; but one-note “revelations” and cliché character development bogs down any mild momentum the film is able to build.

Director Jeff Wadlow does not show the better sense of movement and pacing that he did in Kick-Ass 2 and Cry Wolf (which themselves had issues but were, at the least, not boring) and as such, the horror of Truth or Dare rarely feels thrilling, never mind terrifying.

The film revolves around USC senior Olivia (Lucy Hale, from TV teen drama-thriller Pretty Little Liars), who, with her friends, spends her last night of spring break in Mexico.

Olivia spends her time supporting Habitat for Humanity through her YouTube videos, which establishes the goodness of her character and the film’s plans for her. She also has a secret crush on her BFF’s boyfriend Lucas (Tyler Posey). Meanwhile, BFF Markie (Violett Beane) has a rebellious streak and spends her time cheating on Lucas, therefore ensuring her a less joyful cinematic destiny.

Their Mexican foray introduces them to the charming and not-at-all-creepy Carter (Landon Liboiron), who makes them play a game of truth or dare. He, of course, then reveals that he only invited them to play in order to save his own self, gloriously proclaiming, “I’m OK with strangers dying if it means I get to live”, something that everyone laughs off as a joke.

Who’s next?: Olivia (left) and her friends are caught in a dangerous game of truth or dare.

Upon their return to school, the horror starts to happen. Indeed, the game has followed Olivia and her friends back, forcing them through wide-grinning, “possessed” smiles to play the game. They must either choose to tell the truth or complete some terrifying dare. Lie or avoid the dare and the consequence is death.

There is some fun to be had with the setup, as the initial death showcases. But Wadlow perhaps felt like following in the footsteps of Final Destination was too obvious. As such, there is a lot of focus on the “truth” and its dramatic consequences. Secrets are revealed, leading to drama, but none of it is particularly meaningful to the overall story arc.

Subsequent death scenes are ultimately less creative and with the paper-thin characters, feel uneventful. There is little room to care for these characters, let alone sympathize with them.

The lack of pacing and dynamics mean that the film is full of one outlandish truth-or-dare scene after another. That is, until the surviving characters try to investigate the source of the curse, landing on an explanation that is both ham-fisted and delivered in a ridiculous fashion.

As a horror-drama that is neither scary nor deep, this would have been better off as a made-for-TV piece.

— Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures

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Truth or Dare
(Universal Pictures, 100 minutes)

Director: Jeff Wadlow
Screenwriters: Michael Reisz, Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach, Jeff Wadlow
Starring: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Sophia Ali, Landon Liboiron