Imagine spring break gone wrong to the absolute extreme. That mental image might hint at what to expect with Blumhouse’s “Truth or Dare.” An after dark game of truth or dare in an abandoned church with a stranger leaves a group of California college seniors with a demon on their tails. Friendships, relationships and secrets are tested as the friends fight for their lives.

Stars Lucy Hale (“Pretty Little Liars”) and Tyler Posey (“Teen Wolf”) talked to WSN and other college papers about the making of this film and what sets it apart from others in its genre.

Hale mentioned how her characters in “Pretty Little Liars” and “Truth or Dare” share many qualities, such as being a loyal friend and a brave ally. These characteristics play a major role when the love triangle between Olivia (Hale), her best friend Markie (Violett Beane) and Markie’s boyfriend Lucas (Posey) begins to escalate.

“She’s more afraid of losing Markie as a friend,” Hale told WSN. “I think that’s why over all these years she’s never made a move on Lucas … She puts everyone before herself. But I think there’s also a part of her that’s excited that the game exposes this secret and dares her to go for it with Lucas because otherwise it would never happen.”

Horror may not be the most intuitive genre for improvisation on set, but the balance of humor and horror in “Truth or Dare” allowed the actors to put their own spin on the story.

“One thing we got to have a lot of freedom with was the actual truth or dare game,” Posey said to WSN. “When the lap dance was happening, everyone was throwing out ad libs and we just had a lot of fun with that game. It really did feel like we were playing truth or dare because we were always ad-libbing stuff and trying to one up one another and make each other laugh.”

Hale shared more interesting insight into her character when discussing what brought her to this script. Olivia’s psychological trauma is her biggest fear in the game as opposed to being forced to complete a dare with fatal consequences. This choice of subtlety over gore is what Hale found most compelling, and Posey agreed.

“I like when movies mess with your head, it’s creepier that way,” Posey said.

When asked what kinds of films they would be interested in pursuing in the future, the stars offered insight into their professional processes.

“For me it doesn’t matter if it’s TV or film or what genre it is,” Hale said. “I just really want to try new things and things that seem really challenging to me and what I love so much about ‘Truth or Dare’ is that there is a really strong female lead and we need a lot more of those. I was really excited that for once I got to play that character. For me, that was what was really appealing about ‘Truth or Dare.’”

The tested friendships, intelligent character development and tension between selfishness and selflessness are all factors that attracted Posey and Hale to this project and are exactly what will ensnare audiences in “Truth or Dare.”

“Truth or Dare” opens nationwide this Friday, April 13.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, April 9 print edition. Email Anubhuti Kumar at [email protected].