Nerve is a recent thriller based on the 2012 book of the same name, written by Jeanne Ryan. The film cast features Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, and Machine Gun Kelly. It earned a 6.7/10 on IMDb and a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie revolves around a viral online game of truth-or-dare, “without the truth,” called Nerve. People can sign up at Watchers or Players–Watchers pay to watch, and Players complete dares to earn money. Fed up with living in her friend Sydney’s shadow, high school senior Venus “Vee” Delmonico (Roberts) signs up to be a Player.  

Her first dare seems simple enough: kiss a stranger for five seconds and earn $100. The stranger ends up being another Player named Ian (Franco), who teams up with Vee per the request of the Watchers. Vee and Ian continue playing Nerve together, while the dares get increasingly dangerous. Eventually, Vee begins to discover that the game isn’t what she thought it was–and that Ian may not be who he says he is. But it’s too late to turn back now, and she only has one choice: to finish the game.

Although the movie starts off rather slowly, I soon found myself watching anxiously, especially when the dares start to get really crazy. The plot was pretty interesting, and the amount of technology that the film revolves around makes it believable that something like this could actually happen.

I really enjoyed how all the different characters interacted with each other and all had their own important part to play. I also liked that you could see Vee’s evolution throughout the movie. Once the plot really got going, it didn’t slow down again until the very end, which helped keep my attention on the screen.

Nerve received a lot of mixed reviews, but honestly I thought the movie was really good, and would definitely watch it again.

By Lydia Berg