The awful horror movie Elijah Wood utterly adores: “I love it so much”
From now until the end of time, Elijah Wood will always be Frodo Baggins.
As the blue-eyed, hairy-footed bearer of the One Ring, his journey from The Shire to Mt Doom is the central core of Peter Jackson’s heavenly Lord of the Rings trilogy. He could find a cure for the common cold and perfect time travel in the same day, and people would still come up to him in the streets telling him to “keep his secrets”.
Outside of the lush greenery of Middle Earth, Wood has made appearances in quite a number of horror movies. In 2025, the long-awaited remake of The Toxic Avenger finally hit screens, with Wood playing the role of Fritz Garbinger. He can also be found in several scary films as a child, including a TV movie called Child in the Night and an unofficial spin-off of Home Alone.
This string of gory gigs stems from the actor’s love of the genre. He’s spoken before about his love of horror, endorsing the classic Japanese bloodbath Battle Royale as one of his favourites. In another interview with The Playlist, he shared his deep affection for a much more obscure title – the 1986 clasher Truth or Dare?
“It’s a very meaningful horror film for me because I saw it when I was very young and I’ve introduced it to so many people, but it’s a direct-to-VHS horror film from the 1980s written by Tim Ritter,” he said. “It’s just wonderful and unintentionally funny and very much of the era. It was super low-budget and, as I said, direct-to-VHS and it’s just awesome, I love it so much. I’ve recommended it to a bunch of people but that could be a very fun jump start to your Halloween movie playlist.”
Truth or Dare? was based on a short story by Ritter, who also handled scriptwriting duties. It follows Mike (John Brace), a businessman who discovers that his wife has been having an affair with his best friend. His mental state cracked, and he began hallucinating and committing increasingly violent acts, each one framed through the classic game of ‘Truth or Dare’. Sounds like a decent idea for a horror, right? Wood certainly thinks so, although most people would disagree.
As Truth or Dare? (which sometimes carries the suffix ‘A Critical Madness’) wasn’t a big release, official reviews are hard to come by. The smattering of recaps scattered around the internet mostly agree that, while the film does contain a few decent scares and bloody moments, the plot, dialogue, and acting leave a lot to be desired. In fact, the nicest thing most people have to say about it is that it’s one of Elijah Wood’s favourite films.
That didn’t stop Ritter and co. from expanding the film’s universe. So far, there have been four sequels to Truth or Dare?, with the most recent, I Dared You!, dropping in 2018 and partially funded through crowdfunding. Either this film’s got more of a cult following than anyone realised, or Elijah Wood’s been quietly footing the bill for years. Honestly, either one wouldn’t be that surprising.
