TRIPLE DOG DVD (2010)

SYNOPSIS: TRIPLE DOG takes place in a small suburban town, where six high school girls play a game of dare that staggers out of control, altering their lives forever… the popular girl, Eve (Alexia Fast), is having her 16th birthday slumber party, when her best friend, the attention-hungry Chapin (Brittany Robertson), arrives late and the party starts spinning out of control. Content to entertain themselves with facials and pedicures, tomboy Chapin suggests they play a game of dare called, "Triple Dog". The rules are simple: everyone gets a dare and gives a dare. Failure to perform a dare results in one's head being shaved. Whoever performs the best "Triple Dog Dare" by the end of the night wins a cash prize, their friends' prized possessions and the ultimate respect from their peers. As the night goes on, Chapin challenges each girl to take greater and greater risks. However, it becomes apparent that Chapin is holding on to a big secret. She was there the night her former classmate, Stacy St. Clair, jumped off a bridge and killed herself. No one knows what happened for sure, but everyone has a strong opinion. Chapin is aware that some of her friends hold her responsible for her friend's apparent suicide, and she is defensive about the subject that it's easy to see why. Maddened by the rumors that continue to swirl around her, she runs for the bridge that Stacy St. Clair jumped to her death from, and before her friends can catch up to her, she jumps off too. And it is at the moment that Chapin puts her own life in danger that we finally discover the truth behind the secret that has haunted her.

MOVIE REVIEW:

What is ‘Triple Dog’ exactly? Well, in a nutshell, it’s a game played by a bunch of teenage girls who dare each other to do dangerous stuff, or be shaved bald for gutlessness. What a juvenile game, you say- yes, we won’t deny that the game and its attendant dares are childish but hey this teen drama still proves to be a guilty pleasure if you keep your expectations low.

Writer Barbara Marshall (who has graduated from this movie to the likes of the now-defunct TV series ‘Terra Nova’) aims for something both cool and edgy- which explains the dialogue, that consists of teen-speak such as ‘bitchuation’, ‘ear rape’, or ‘slut me’. Sure, it does make for some corny and cheesy moments, but who are we to judge if teenage girls genuinely believe that they gain street cred by speaking like that.

Anyhow, the game unfolds as a bunch of five girls congregated at Eve’s house on the occasion of her birthday sleepover party decide to spice things up for the evening by taking up a suggestion to do something more exciting. Out of peer pressure and the fear of appearing wimpy, none of them objects.

So it begins- from asking the prim and proper religious girl Sarah (Emily Tennant) to streak naked down the neighbourhood, to getting socially awkward ‘Rat Girl’ Liza (Scout Taylor- Compton) to hide in Eve’s brother’s closet, to goading Eve to fake a seizure at a Chinese restaurant that hosts standup performers as entertainment. That’s of course the milder ones, and we won’t spoil the surprise on the rest.

The fun lies in both not anticipating what the next dare will be, as well as anticipating just how far each character will go not to lose ‘face’ in front of her friends. There’s also a nice bit of mystery thrown in, with resident bad girl Chapin (Britt Robertson) hiding some painful secret from the rest about her involvement in a local girl’s purported suicide just months ago.

Running at a brief 90 mins, director Pascal Franchot keeps the pace brisk and efficient, so the pace rarely does slack- even through momentary diversions such as an unlikely romance between Liza and Eve’s brother Clarke. In between, the teenage cast do their best to hold your attention. Best of all is Robertson, who exudes both arrogance and vulnerability in equal measure, and keeps your feelings vacillating about her character before eventually winning your sympathy.

Perhaps the best thing you could say about ‘Triple Dog’ is that it wasn’t a ‘dog’- for what it was worth, it offers a modicum of excitement to keep you intrigued, even as you scoff at the characters’ and their infantile behaviour. And for our younger readers, you might just want to know that the cast is easy on the eye to say the least. .

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is functional at best, and could do better at certain parts of the dialogue. Picture is presented in cropped 4:3 format, rather inexcusable if you ask us in this day and age of widescreen TVs.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Gabriel Chong