Truth or Dare (2018): written by Michael Reisz, Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach, and Jeff Wadlow; directed by Jeff Wadlow; starring Lucy Hale (Olivia), Tyler Posey (Lucas), Violett Beane (Markie), Hayden Szeto (Brad), Sophia Ali (Penelope), Nolan Funk (Tyson), and Landon Liboiron (Carter):
So-so horror flick from the ubiquitous Blumhouse. Most of the cast is way older than the early 20's college students they play, a sometimes-distracting fact. A game of Truth or Dare turns supernaturally deadly because of a mysterious supernatural force.
I think the message of the film is 'Don't vacation in Mexico,' or maybe 'Don't play stupid teen-aged games in a sinister, abandoned church in Mexico.' Certainly an adequate time-waster, though even at a bare 90 minutes it feels about 15 minutes too long. Lightly recommended.
Ghost Stories (2017): written and directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman; starring Andy Nyman (Professor Goodman), Martin Freeman (Mike Priddle), Paul Whitehouse (Tony Matthews), Alex Lawther (Simon Rifkind), and Paul Warren (Woolly):
Adapted from a play by co-director Jeremy Dyson and starring co-director Andy Nyman as a psychic debunker, Ghost Stories creeps up on the viewer, building towards a harrowing final 20 minutes or so. The three ghost stories investigated by Nyman's rigid, unsympathetic Professor Goodman have changed their participants irrevocably, and not necessarily for the better. Goodman tries to remain unchanged as weirdness increases in his own life.
Some viewers (like me!) will be initially put off by the characterization of a psychic investigator as a bad guy, even as he exposes a fraud early in the movie in pretty much exactly the way that longtime debunker James Randi did. Stick with it, though. What seems like a general observation on the part of the movie may turn out to be something very much else.
I'd love to see how this play was originally staged. The movie has done such a terrific job of 'opening it up' that I'd be hard-pressed to cite any moments in which it seems like an adaptation of a stage play. Recommended.
