YMMV / Truth or Dare (2018)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Olivia really willingly causing The End of the World as We Know It by spreading the Truth or Dare curse via YouTube just to save her and Markie's hides? Or is Calux possessing her to do so rather than kill her for the same reason (if she and Markie die, it pretty much ceases to exist in this realm also).
• Complete Monster: Calux is a gleefully sadistic trickster demon who is released and targets Olivia Barron and her friends when they are brought into a Two Truths and a Dare version of the game. Years earlier, Calux wiped out numerous girls at a mission when they first freed him and then the friends of Sam Meehan—aka Carter—and Gisele Hammond while then forcing Giselle to burn a girl alive and forcing Sam to pass the game on. Olivia and her friends are all psychologically tortured by Calux through confessing uncomfortable truths—as well as a dare that almost kills one anyway—and two of them end up dead in very cruel and brutal manners. Through Calux, another is then killed by a reluctant Giselle trying to kill Olivia and Giselle is forced to kill herself too. Olivia and Markie Cameron's Love Interest Lucas Moreno ends up forced to kill Sam and then himself right after. Once the game is released to the world, Calux is all too happy to continue.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Due to the rise of the Among Us meme "WHEN THE IMPOSTER IS SUS!", the faces made when somebody is possessed by Calux end up becoming far more amusing than terrifying.
• Inferred Holocaust: Olivia releases a video online in which explains the curse and the game. She ends by asking "Truth or dare?". As the rules are "once you're asked, you're in", everyone who watches is now part of the game, and anyone they ask is part of the game. The logical inference is that this will cause a genocide that wipes out the majority of the world's population.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Olivia and Markie posting a video that will kill untold people just to save their own lives.
  • Calux is already a very nasty piece of work as it was, so pinpointing his crossing is fairly difficult, but given his first act of cruelty is to have a bystander burned to death as part of his game, it’s pretty clear from the start he’s a thoroughly heinous creature.
• Narm: The face people make when Callux possesses them, looking like goofy Joker-like smiles in most cases, and in other cases, a Jim Carrey impressionist.
• Signature Scene: Penelope having to finish a bottle of vodka while walking along the edge of her rooftop, as her friends scramble below to catch her in case she falls. The scene has been lauded for being the only genuinely stressful and suspenseful moment of the film.
• Special Effect Failure: Callux's face has been described as looking like a bad Snapchat filter, something that's even Lampshaded in the film itself, as its description of it as a "messed-up Snapchat filter" was added in post-production after the filmmakers themselves were surprised by how the SFX looked.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The much criticised ending could have been made stronger had the choice come down to either Markie or the rest of the world somewhat like the actual ending, then for Olivia to choose Markie. Not only would it have been consistent to what she had said at the start about choosing the world over letting millions of people die, but it also would have been an opportunity for her to realise what a terrible friend Markie was and do something that would cut her out of her life. It would be a terrible thing, despite the potential audience Catharsis Factor, that would leave the film on an appropriately chilling note. She had to kill her former best friend to save the world and despite her terribleness, Markie was still an innocent party in this situation and wouldn't have deserved to outright die. It could have even made for some post movie discussion, rather than the cliched and aggravating ending that did happen.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The cast consists of vapid teens and a cruel creature, so most viewers don't care what happens to anyone.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Olivia and Markie for distributing the curse on YouTube just to save their skins. Olivia especially is intended to be a caring, reasonable person, yet she willingly causes the deaths of countless people. It comes off as especially hypocritical after she called-out the people who spread the curse to her and her friends, and tried to make one of them cut their tongues out to end it. Olivia's "I'm really sorry for doing this" before asking Truth or Dare doesn't exactly help, as she has revealed herself to be willing to commit genocide just so she can live.
  • Markie is revealed to have been cheating on her boyfriend and not only does she not admit to it, she shames Olivia for lying. Then it's revealed Markie's father came on to her and Markie storms off mad at Olivia!

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