Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Truth of Dare: Critical Madness (1986)


Mike has a great life. He just got a promotion, loves his wife, and has a nice home.  But when he comes home unexpectedly in the middle of the day, he finds his wife in bed with his best friend Jerry.  Mike is not amused.  To make matters worse, his wife tells him it's over and she wants to be with Jerry.

As Mike aimlessly drives around to a synthesizer soundtrack, he flashes back to all the signs that his wife was having an affair. Then he picks up a young hitchhiker and decides to take her camping.

They build a fire and start playing the stupidest game of truth or dare ever.  The game escalates to the girl daring Mike to cut off his finger, stab himself in the chest, and rip out his own tongue.  After he does all this it becomes clear that not only is Mike insane, but the hitchhiker is only in his warped mind.

After a stint at the Sunnyvale Insane Asylum, Mike is released due to budget cuts. Yay! Oddly enough he seems to have his tongue and finger again.

Right out the door, it's obvious that Mike is still nuts.  After getting revenge on his ex and Jerry, he's back in the asylum where he manages to play truth or dare with the inmates. After daring an inmate to  blow his head off with a grenade, Mike cuts up his own face.

Later he escapes while wearing a gold mask he made in the asylum metal shop. Because it's always a good idea to let the insane violent inmates work with hot metal, fire and tools that could crack a skull. As Mike drives around I worried about his lack of peripheral vision due to the obstruction from that stupid mask.  Since Mike already had his revenge, there's nothing left to do but to kill everyone he can get his hands on.

The movie is terrible, but I'll give the filmmaker credit. If you watch the extras, you'll hear that he was six months out of high school when he got a $200K deal to make this movie.  Pretty impressive, even if the movie is crap.  A young AJ from the Backstreet Boys plays Mike as a kid.  The end theme song is incredibly bad.
This is how a maniac looks when he's surprised
Fish tank vision
If your wife looks this disinterested when you
profess your love to her, you've got a big problem.
The incredible prison mask. My god, he drove
while wearing this!

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