The Dare

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.

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.

This movie is a none stop of Gore, Blood Torturing action. A very good watch.

In 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.

I 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!