Written by Tyrone BruinsmaTRUTH OR DARE In 2018, Blumhouse released Truth or Dare-a supernatural horror film that made almost $100 Million on a budget of $3.5 Million. It was shredded by critics, but that didn’t matter as Blumhouse had critical hits that same year with Upgrade, Halloween and BlacKkKlansman-the latter two being financial hits as well. Blumhouse’s model is to make a variety of high concept films, some good and some bad-so the lights stay on and they make as much money as possible. With that said, Truth or Dare was one of the worst films Blumhouse had made alongside the Paranormal Activity sequels and The Visit. It seemed like a winning enough formula so why didn’t it work? Well, let’s take a look. Truth or Dare was directed by Jeff Wadlow, who also contributed to the screenplay. Wadlow is primarily the subject of this essay, so we’ll give him a quick introduction. Wadlow made some prominent short films in 2002 before shifting over to feature films in 2005 with Cry Wolf. We’ll talk about Cry Wolf later, but it was a moderately successful slasher with mostly bad reviews. He then directed films like Never Back Down and Kick-Ass 2, moderately successful films with mixed reception. And in 2016 he directed the Kevin James Netflix comedy - True Memoirs of an International Assassin…a film which has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes…so yeah. In 2018 he made a strong partnership with Blumhouse thanks to Truth or Dare doing so well financially. What’s surprising about the film is Jeff was one of 4 people to contribute to the story. The story and script was done by Michael Reisz whose is mostly known for producing and writing dozens of Boston Legal episodes. Interesting choice to shift from a comedy drama series to supernatural horror, but weirder shifts have happened. Jillian Jacobs also contributed to the script, having helped on Wadlow’s prior bad comedy and who’d also help write his next film Fantasy Island. The last writer was Christopher Roach, writer of the 2014 action thriller Non-Stop that Wadlow executively produced. I originally theorized Reisz wrote the story and script, Blumhouse bought the script and sat on it for a while until Wadlow brought close collaborators to tune it to his liking. In reality, an executive at Universal told Jason Blum to give them a horror movie titled Truth or Dare. Blum took this to Wadlow, who pitched the opening scene on the spot. After that, he brought in the 3 previously mentioned writers to all collaborate on the script. I’m surprised the opening scene was the first idea pitched as the opening is somewhat effective. But from experience, studio executives coming up with titles and demanding they be made into films doesn’t work out. For example, a Paramount executive demanded that a Monster Trucks movie be made where monster go inside the trucks-suggested by his toddler son. By the time that movie was released, the executive was no longer working at the studio and Paramount had made a $123 million loss on the film. Hollywood likes to pretend it’s a well-oiled machine, but sometimes it’s people with no idea on what they’re doing wasting millions of dollars. The premise of Truth or Dare is a group of unlikable college students play the game in a haunted place. The demon haunting that location decides to follow them home to continue playing the game. The premise alone is where the film breaks. The film fits two categories of problems in modern films I dislike. The first is how the horror is entirely based upon a demon. It’s similar to the 2019 horror film Countdown which could have had an interesting motive or ambiguity if the explanation wasn’t just a poorly explained supernatural entity. The second is a term I’m finding applicable to a lot of films, but Jeff Wadlow’s specifically. “Needlessly convoluted, yet ridiculously simple”. Basically, it refers to a film with a very simple story that tries to add unneeded information or pretentiously acts like it’s something more. Recent examples include The Woman in the Window, Escape Room, The Girl on the Train or Spectre. The simple part of the film is “Tell the truth or do the dare, or you die”, the convoluted part is this unnecessary mystery and the defined, yet undefined rules for the demon’s powers and game. It’s pretty much an overly elaborate way of getting to kills in Final Destination…but with no bite. Only one death scene stands out, but the horror is non-existent. A big part of why is when the demon possesses people to ask “Truth or Dare”: it uses a creepy grin face filter you could find on Snapchat. It’s vaguely off putting the first time, but it just comes off as silly the more it’s used. Ultimately, the supernatural element isn’t fun and makes the film worse. The simple change for a better film would be to make it a slasher. This group of friends clearly have personal issues, so take a page from Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer. Have someone from this harmless game of Truth or Dare become a masked psycho killer who toys with them and plays the game before murdering them. It’d be a far better story as the purpose of “Truth or Dare” is to expose people’s embarrassing truths or make them do embarrassing things. Having a demon be the puppet master behind this instead of a tense cat and mouse game removes all the tension. In the end, it’s easy to know why Truth or Dare sucks-it’s not fun, not well made and we don’t like the characters. FANTASY ISLAND But like I said, Truth or Dare was insanely successful at the box office-so Jeff was picked up for another horror film. This time, he and his two prior collaborators were to make a horror adaptation of the fantasy show-Fantasy Island. Fantasy Island was a show were people get what they want, but learn it’s not what they want and there’s a moral lesson. That’s actually not the worst idea to turn into a horror film as many horror stories are characters learning lessons. Once again however, this film adds in supernatural elements that actively make it worse and it’s a convoluted yet simple story. I actually thought the opening several minutes were quite effective, for a while I thought the film would reveal that this is a kind of purgatory for characters meant to face their sins of desire. Unfortunately, that was not the case and the film devolves into all the characters being connected, a magic rock and a pointless quest for revenge. It’s a waste of the premise and license, to where I’m wondering if Jeff Wadlow knows how horror is supposed to work. It’s ok to have a complex narrative like Gone Girl or Tenet, but if you’re just throwing random twists at the wall for the sake of subversion-it doesn’t make anything work. Subversion in narratives can work, but when your “twists” are little more than bland reveals-there’s no point. Fantasy Island could’ve been a powerful story about letting go of the selfish desires we have, but it’s absolutely squandered for twists the writers THINK are cool…but they just suck. It didn’t matter though, despite coming out at the begin of the global Covid-19 outbreak-the film made nearly $50 Million on a $7 Million budget. Critics tore it apart like the creator’s prior film and Blumhouse still made a ridiculous amount of money. CRY WOLF And so, I decided to go back to Wadlow’s only other horror film before his Blumhouse Phase-Cry Wolf. It’s weird how Cry Wolf is almost a Rosetta Stone for how badly Jeff Wadlow handles horror. It’s a needlessly complicated, yet simple story and misuses the horror genre. While it’s not a supernatural horror like his later efforts, it is a slasher that doesn’t know how to function as a slasher. Cry Wolf was the end of mainstream slashers until nostalgic revivals in films like You’re Next and The Terrifier. In 1996, Scream revived the slasher genre after it was killed by lazy 80’s sequels. And so, you had studios trying to recreate and imitate its success, with the only good one being I Know What You Did Last Summer. The Scream sequels sucked, a rip-off attempt called Urban Legend sucked, then a bad slasher called Valentine was released and finally Cry Wolf. Cry Wolf came out in 2005, being outclassed in its genre by Wolf Creek, Hostel and The Devil’s Rejects. Plus, other superior horror films like The Descent and Red Eye kept it in the gutter. Despite those films and negative reviews, Cry Wolf made over $32 Million on a $1 Million budget. Not bad for a directorial effort. But Cry Wolf still sucks, it’s a rehash of Scream and Urban Legend with an email as the inciting incident. It’s an obvious play on the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story, but ultimately resorts to a cliché narrative and motivation that was played out by 2005. Slashers in the 80’s like Happy Birthday to Me, April Fool’s Day and My Bloody Valentine are all far superior in story, let alone the kills. Cry Wolf is a needlessly watered-down slasher, which wasn’t a good choice as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and Saw exposed audiences to violence that hadn’t been prevalent since the exploitation era. Audiences wanted violence again and Cry Wolf did not supply. Cry Wolf set the stage for Wadlow’s career over a decade later-horror films that are the lower tier of the genre. PREY But before writing off Wadlow’s horror career entirely-I found out he helped write a 2007 killer lion film called Prey. Prey was directed by South African filmmaker Darrell Roodt who started out with dramas like Sarafina and Father Hood…to b-movie rubbish like Dracula 3000 and Lake Placid Legacy. My hope was Prey would be a diamond in the rough as it had a good premise, decent director and Robocop himself Peter Weller. Unfortunately, it’s bad. It’s not as bad as the worst killer giant cat films like Man-Eater or Burning Bright…but it’s not as good as 2020’s Rogue or The Ghost and The Darkness. Prey is just a relatively boring thriller about a family in Africa being hunted by a pack of lions. It’s the complete opposite of Wadlow’s other horror works where it’s so simple that it actually lacks interesting story beats. The filmmaking isn’t especially good, the kills aren’t very noteworthy and the performances are very “meh” all round. It’s so weird that Jeff’s scripts all boil down to very simple…but either he overcomplicates them, or they have no meat on the bone. If you need a killer animal film from 2007 set in Africa-I recommend the killer crocodile film Primeval. BLOODSHOT
While he’s written for shows like The Strain and Bates Motel, Wadlow’s “best film” to his name is probably the Vin Diesel film Bloodshot. Another film that released during the early Covid Outbreak, Bloodshot is a lackluster action film with like two good action scenes and one of them was neutered in editing. The strongest parts of the script easily come from Eric Heisserer; writer of Final Destination 5, Lights Out and the incredible Arrival. There’s the germ of an idea to the film in telling the story where all heroes who defy their bosses/organization for personal revenge are just blank slates manipulated for corporate gain. It acts as a kind of subversion for a lot of cliché action hero films…but part of me wonders if that’s just bad writing with unintentionally subversive themes. Ultimately, Wadlow’s career has amounted to a series of half-baked films. When the best thing he has his name to is Non-Stop that he had little involvement with, it’s not a good look. I’m not making this to bash Jeff Wadlow, I have a lot of respect for workman writers and directors like himself. I just think he needs to re-evaluate how he approaches his projects, like the Masters of the Universe film he’s attached to write. Part of me thinks Jeff would be better as a producer to enable people’s visions. In film, knowing the role you’re best suited to is what creates good projects. Some people are visionary writers and directors, some are expert technicians and some are good people with good ideas who need to bring the visionaries and technicians together.
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