Review of Truth or Dare?

Truth or Dare is a campy, sadistic, truly warped horror movie. Shot on videotape and transferred to film, it actually benefits from its amateurishness, resulting in a genuinely disturbing experience that really packs a punch. This is one of the very few movies where video photography actually contributes the atmosphere instead of destroying it. It's incredibly gory and shows things that mainstream films wouldn't even imply. Where else are you going to see a baby run over by a car and a little boy chainsawed? And what's really interesting is that you never know where it'll go next. You think it's going to be a standard get-out-of-the-asylum-and-terrorize-the-ex-wife stalker plot, but things take a series of unexpected twists, with the bloodbath getting more and more demented. There are many moments where you don't know whether to laugh, scream, or get sick.

There are the usual bad-movie routines. The acting is variable--Kerry Ellen Walker, as the frizzy-haired hitchhiker chick, seems to have been plucked directly from a high-school production of Bye Bye Birdie. At the climax, the copper mask pulsates when the killer breathes. Still, it's all so numbingly brutal and unsettling that you can suspend disbelief ("hmm...very thin copper, apparently") and get dragged along on the bloody joyride. Kay Reed sings the hyper-dramatic theme song, "A Critical Madness," which is the source of my summary quote. Truly unforgettable, and not for the faint of heart or those concerned with "taste." As if children are immune to death!