I love low-budget flicks... Always have and probably always will.  It first started many, many, many years ago when I saw (TROLL 2) as a child; but probably well before that even.  I remember watching Fred Olen Ray's (SCALPS) when I was like 5 on a double feature VHS with another off beat flick called, (SLAYER).  Those movies never ignited laughter or the buddy gathering, though.  They were more visceral and bizarre to me.  Still profoundly absurd and cheesy in retrospect, but had a much darker and more visceral tone than (TROLL 2) and a few others where you could actually get a laugh out of the production with friends.

Anyways, long winded rant aside... I saw (Truth or Dare) many years ago, again on VHS, and had long forgotten about it until the Netflix revived it among many other Tim Ritter flicks.  And I gotta say, while it's an absolute blast to laugh at, it's not that bad of a movie as a whole and there are several ideas in this one that have been taken and used by the likes of Cameron Crowe and Rob Zombie.

I'll get to a few of those instances in a second or two, though.

The movie is about a guy, straight as an arrow widdled by an Indian Shaman, who's a hard workin' family guy.  He comes home and finds his wife in bed with a friend of his and thus his downward spiral continues into a ball of absolute chaos the last half hour of the film.  Chaos of extreme suspect in taste at that.

Mike creates little facades and falsities throughout the movie, and while many of them aren't fully realized you can easily see where Tim, at the time all but 19 years old, was going with it.  It's a very abstract ride through a very disturbingly realized world.  You never can be sure if what Mike is seeing and doing is really real.  And that is what really sold me on this film again.  Now much older I can really appreciate some of what Tim Ritter was going for and I think he did an alright job at times.

The movie has very long scenes -- no doubt to cut down on budget --  But it's some of these long camera shots that add a very odd and disturbing, almost like we're hanging around witnessing the madness feel to it.  

For instance, a scene where Mike gets sliced across the gut - staggers out of the house - through the yard - down the sidewalk - into the street and finally collapsing into the street.

The scene is done in one very long winded camera shot with no edits.  It's very surreal and it leaves you hanging there almost like a bystander to the insanity.  It might not be looked upon as clean moving making or whatever, but it makes an impression none the less.  Well, it did on me.

Mike takes many trips to the Mental ward and during this movie and it is here where I wasn't so sure Tim Ritter was making a real attempt at horror or just doing a parody of Halloween at times.  Same name for the killer -- Same blue jumpsuit -- A mask... Escaping from an institution.  It's all here for the question taking.  But the movie, even with the similarities, still has its own identity.

And that wraps me back to two movies (Vanilla Sky -- Rob Zombie's Halloween)

I firmly believe both of those movies took from this film.  Rob Zombie's Halloween plays out very, very similar to the last half of this movie.  Even the way he explores how Michale likes making mask in the institution.  It was all done here in (Truth or Dare).  And Vanilla sky, Tom Cruises character, the same jumpsuit... The same mask, only in this movie it's copper.  The same circumstances surround both as to what they're dealing with.  I think Vanilla Sky is a masterpiece and in no way should it really be compared to this movie, but watch all 3 and tell me what ya think.

The similarities are staggering.

But, in the end, the acting sucks.  The script sucks worse.  The gore is alright.  The music score is one of the worst and most nerve racking you'll ever hear too.  This is another instance where I feel he was taking shots at Carpenters theme, as it too was only 5 notes long too.  This theme is much, much, much worse, however.  It's a damn joke.  And it makes you wanna mute it when it's on.  In fact, after watching it I ran to my keyboard in my office and hammered it out real quick.  It's already pissing off my wife and we just re-watched it last night.  

All I can say is ... For what it is, the movie isn't bad.  Tim Ritter was 19 years old when he made this movie and for like 200,000 bucks.  Most 19 year olds handed that kind of money would've blew it in an arcade back in them days and smoked copious amounts of weed on it.  While Carpenters Halloween predates it and had 100,000 more bucks in production money, it is vastly more superior in terms of quality.  But if you go into this one with the right mindset you'll walk away pretty damn pleased and you'll probably even talk about it from time to time in your life.

6 out of 10

P.S. It has one of the worst endings you're bound to ever see.