I found this on Amazon Prime when I was looking for something to fill in an hour or so without too much attention from me! It did the job. It's not the best recent horror film I've seen, but it's far from being the worst. If you can ignore a major plot hole it's fine. OK, SPOILERS AHEAD!
The premise is that four people are being held in a dungeon and are forced to harm one another by a masked madman. The perpetrator had been held prisoner in a remote farmhouse since childhood by a crazy guy following a dare gone wrong. In order to complete a series of dares to become part of a gang, he had to go into the creepy house...and was never seen again. He becomes a replacement son for the inhabitant, and eventually becomes mad himself. Having been lied to by his "adoptive father" who told him no one was looking for him, he kills him once he learns the truth, and as punishment for having been denied a normal life, tracks down and torments the other kids, now grown up, who abandoned him to his fate and who never told the police about the dare.
This overlooks one basic flaw. Most kids of that age don't deal with guilt very well. Even if they had instigated the dare of going into the creepy house, the ensuing missing persons case would have caused at least one of the kids to crack under pressure and tell what had happened. For most kids the thought of being punished for their part in such a situation pales in comparison to having to keep such a huge guilty secret. At least one of those kids would have told the police everything! For me, it was a stretch of the imagination that they would all have kept silent for 20 years.
Overlooking this however, it's a very watchable, sometimes gory film that should keep you entertained for a while.
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halcyonbear4 March 2021
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Embroideredjune13 December 2019Saw this as an early viewing for Friday the 13th.
The Dare has a lot of potential. Though the plot is paper thin and questionable, it could have been a lot more enjoyable if the movie was constructed a little differently - cut some scenes and add some more backstory. The characters felt underdeveloped and I didn't care for what happened to them because of it.
There were a few moments which made this movie great, but were quickly ruined by cheap jumpscares, guy with a mask and actors that seem to have no previous experience in acting.
All in all: If you want to make a gore horror movie, then do it and do it good! -
decarloj23 April 2022It's basically Prom Night meets Saw. Four kids torment another boy, leading to a tragic incident. Twenty years later, the victim enacts his revenge. The movie kept me engaged, and the acting was pretty good for low budget. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to see it again, but it's worth a one time watch.
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dylanchang-758371 July 2022PLEASE read before downvoting.
The movie makes no sense and its down to the plot. I'm supposed to believe that 4 preteen kids aged 11-14 years old (looks like it) met a random kid at a campfire and said if he wanted to join their "gang" he'd have to (A) have spiders put in him, (B) eat a cockroach, (C) be put in a Jesus Christ cross position and have worms tossed on his head? And (D) be forced to stay in an abandoned farm to top it all off? It is beyond RIDICULOUS. Then the protagonist tries to gain pity from the kid by saying they were friends when he tortured the kid and left him for dead. The writers then somehow, after all that, want us to feel bad for the protagonist and his peers after they tortured, abandoned and helped to assist a child get abducted while his parents would be literally murdered in a fire soon after and all kids would purposely tell the police nothing.
They do all that and somehow don't realize what's going on and also magically don't know each other as adults? Most people would hear someone's name and instantly remember "oh hey I knew someone with that name in my childhood." -
henryzito12 December 2020I was more interested in the killer's past than everything else in the plot. the problem is, i've seen this kind of storyline before and i wasn't impressed. the torture scenes are good!
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Amy271019 May 2023I don't understand how anyone can compare this move to Saw. In what way are they alike?
What we see is a group of pre-teens bullying an outsider. Because of their actions, the bullied boy is kidnapped and lives a horrible abused life. The thought that this child could could, 20 years later, track down a group of kids he knew only briefly is ridiculous. He didn't know their names or where they were from. He knew nothing about them. After they brutalized him, he was kept captive and had no contact with the outside world. He was completely isolated. How would he find them, much less take them hostage? I'm fine with suspending disbelief but this is too much. This is just a dumb movie with a bad script that makes no sense. Of course there's also the "hey, I forgot all about that kid I terrorized that one summer. I guess I do know all of you" reveal. Was that supposed to be a plot twist?
Don't waste your time watching. -
iainmcleod_80010 February 2021Well I was. The kids were horrible and left him behind. Only thing i didnt like was he was still relatively normal when he killed his kidnapper, then turned into a mask wearing, gibberish speaking mass murderer. He'd have to have gone to the shops for food, clothes etc, haircut?
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kathmummybear29 January 2021I feel like I've seen this so many times .there's nothing new !no interesting twist or turn .all I can say is it's shot well other than that nothing good to say
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My expectations were fairly low for 'The Dare'. I saw some people saying it had a similar feel to 'Saw' and that's typically all the green-light I need to give a film a shot. I could see why they would make that connection - people tied up in a room with the promise of torture to come - but ultimately the film ends up being very different to that. The torturer's motivations, the way the story plays out and the gruesomeness coming more from brutality rather than clever gadgets are the main points of difference. The film had some good stuff going for it though.
I love it when you can relate to a villain. The best villains are ones that can be understood and the elite ones are the ones where you question whether or not you should be on their side. I'll be honest, by the end of this film I was genuinely torn over who I should be rooting for. The film deserves massive props for the way it set that up. It puts an enormous amount of effort into showing the back-story and it was all worth it.
The film does lose steam a little in the second half. It runs out of ideas a little and plays out a little bit too predictably for my liking. It also reveals its cards a little too early in the runtime and is left with a little too much time to fill in after that. The gore gets pretty intense at times so prepare yourself for that. There's also a fun final scene that ends the film on a positive and memorable note. I had a surprisingly good time with 'The Dare' and would recommend people give it a shot. -
williambarrows12 October 2020Not a great movie. It starts off with promise but doesn't go anywhere interesting. Gets tedious and silly. A bit sad cause there was potential. Was hard to make it through.
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In a completely over-saturated revenge torture horror, I'm very impressed. Yes, we've seen Saw and God knows how many piss-poor clones before, and admittedly nothing particularly new is done here - but its done with style, with good acting, a decent plot with a backstory that makes sense, has great lighting, direction and isn't just a showcase for torture and twisted ways for people to die. It could have done with a bit more background on some of the characters, but overall, this is a great late night horror flick that manages to avoid most genre specific cliches and try to give a degree of realism, mystery and empathy to the protagonists case. There's absolutely nothing new here, but what you get is what you expect, and it's all done very well. Bad reviews here must be from non-genre fans or from rival studios perhaps... Everything in the movie, other than depth of characterisation (main hero and main bad guy fleshed out nicely, others were waiting to drop off A'la Star Trek...) No idea what they were expecting, or why they mark down a quality piece of work... Great late night fun!!!
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dgosset-828-8070855 March 2020This movie is a none stop of Gore, Blood Torturing action. A very good watch.
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movieman6-413-92951020 December 2019The Dare is a new horror film directed and partly written by Giles Alderson, the director of World of Darkness.
In the film, Jay Jackson (Bart Edwards) wakes up in a basement where he is stuck with three other people. The four are being held by a masked muscular man who forces the prisoners to hurt each other. The prisoners must discover what they have in common and why they are being held captive. They must now also come up with a plan to be able to escape before their hostage lets them kill each other or he does this for themselves.
This film soon comes across as a new film from the Saw film series, which was then made by fans of this series. The film is filled with bloody moments and puzzles that the characters have to go through and see to solve. Unfortunately, these situations quickly come across as familiar and then completely to people familiar with the Saw films. Compared to the Saw films, the viewer also misses a mystery around the film to keep you interested in the film. The only tension you get with this film is only if a character makes a stupid mistake, which can cause someone else to die or be hurt by another character. As a horror fan you better watch one of the good Saw films.
The acting is also not that special, because you only get information about the characters during the movie, but they are not really well worked out to really care about the characters. Because of the many clichés and mistakes that they make, you start to irritate the characters rather than get really sorry for them. -
jgkelley-4879713 September 2021But it's hilarious when people come on to review a horror movie & say too much gore.
Or unnecessary gore. It's like watching a slasher movie & saying, Too much murder. Or watching a comedy & saying, way to many funny jokes or funny moments for my liking. Or watching a drama & saying, movie was way too serious & intense. Or watching a movie about a main character who is a misogynist & saying they don't like that movie cuz it contains misogyny. Like for 1, you would think they'd understand it's 1 character in a movie on the latter point. I heard some hash Kiss Kiss bang bang cuz the way they portrayed a gay & that gays don't act like that. As if you can put all gays in a box. It was 1 gay man, and maybe he does act that way. Who are you to say how a gay should act. Whether it's "too flamboyant" or you have another issue with it. Or any character. As far as the "too much gore", it's like me ordering an extra spicy meal & say, ya I don't like this & running to Yelp & complaining about the meal I just ate from a place.
So if you don't like gore, I wouldn't watch the movie. If you don't like things that tend to be in the horror genre movies, I'd also not watch. Don't wanna give movie away, but I agree with most who say it's similar to saw. Obv completely different plot & different characters tho. It's just basically if you into a movie like saw, you might into this. -
oj_remme9 August 2020The potential was there all the way, but it fell short.. Some bad dialogs, very easy to predict and many dumb decisions by the characters.
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Patient4444 March 2020Yes indeed, it does come with a plot, nothing out of the ordinary, well to be honest, one of the most common for this genre, but still it does have more than one layer. It has two, it has two layers.
Other than that, The Dare is exactly what you would expect it to be, a movie like Would You Rather, or Model Hunger, a plot that relies solely on the next explicit torture method in order to shock, because it is unable to scare.
I am not a fan of this type of productions, so I will not recommend it, it is more like the Saw series indeed than say, Urban Legends, so if you're in the first category, I guess you could give it a try. The plot never truly thickens, it is what it is and it stays that way and then the end comes. A soon to be tired old formula I hope, one that we will see less and less of. It doesn't really bring anything to the horror section, it just tries to bend the rules in order to get some views.
Cheers! -
Undoubtedly we are not in front of a masterpiece, but this film certainly has many interesting things: the atmospheres are very dark and sick, the scenes of violence really raw and intense, the cast is doing well, above all the always magnificent Richard Brake, who offers, once again, a sadistic and ruthless villain. In this era, where crap for teenagers or sloppy ghost stories pg 13 are popular, a film like this would be to be praised, and instead, as usual, the demented people of IMDB crush it and give it a miserable 5/10. A film like this, imho, deserves a 7/10.
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swarupcsc24 July 2021Mediocre movie I feel the storyline is not well edited.
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metaltony8 March 2020Lots of blood and torture whats not to like! If you liked the saw franchise your going to love this.
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Christopher37011 June 2023The flashback jumps got really annoying after a while. Either stay in the room with the prisoners or stay with the kidnapped kid. It was like two movies were playing at once and kept cutting back and forth between the two.
It got so annoying that I just tuned out and half watched until I realized I could be watching something better. It says I still have 243 characters to go in this review lol.
Why is this website being so silly and forcing a character count?! Is a review not a review unless it has a minimum number of characters?! What idiot made if that silly rule? I can sum up my review in three words...."this movie sucked". Oh I passed my limit! Done! -
eyewonder-6673010 March 2020A stockholm syndrome horror story, full of gore and gruesome scenes that make your senses tingle, with a twist or two along the way. The main character is twisted, the cast is believable. Like an "R" rated Goosebumps book. Like Saw without the righteousness.
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myignisrules30 March 2020If you combined the emotional trauma from Silent Night Deadly Night with the what did they do to deserve this of Saw you'll get The Dare. Not bad at all.
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abortamir26 April 2021I was rooting the bad guy to win because how pathetic did those people treat him, they all deserve to die, and because they use too much time and 2 timeline to discuss of the past and present. It bring less suspense , It was so boring for the first 45 minutes.
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Sebadonut10115 February 2021In a sea of generic horror-thrillers, The Dare just about managed to peek above the waves and entertain me briefly before disappearing back to the murky depths below to be forgotten.
The production values were decent enough and I even found myself impressed with the camera-work at a few spots. The acting was serviceable for this kind of film and there was enough gruesome moments to keep my attention. The plot and characterisation however was terribly cliche, predictable and possibly the films biggest weaknesses.
If you keep your expectations in check then The Dare can be a mildly fun but forgettable 90 minutes for fans of this kind of thing.