Studio: STX Films
Director: Justin Dec
Writer: Justin Dec
Producer: John Rickard, Zack Schiller, John Morris, Sean Anders
Stars: Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Bateman, Tichina Arnold, P.J. Byrne, Peter Facinelli, Dillon Lane, Matt Letscher, Valente Rodriguez, Tom Segura, Anne Winters
Review Score:
Summary:
A cursed cellphone app that reveals how much time a person has left to live wreaks havoc on a young nurse struggling to save her sister and a new friend.
Review:
What would you do if you knew exactly when you were going to die and how long you had left to live? You wouldn’t spend any remaining minutes watching “Countdown” because that would be a tragic misuse of your time.
In this 2019 version of the endlessly recycled “young adults are supernaturally tormented after inadvertently invoking a curse” setup, a mysterious cellphone app called ‘Countdown’ provides users with an ominous timer ticking down to their deaths. These expiration dates are non-news for anyone destined to live to a ripe old age. For those with significantly less time, discovering you have only days or even hours left in your lifespan can be a serious cause for concern.
Naturally, no one reads the terms and conditions upon downloading the app. If they did, they’d know trying to sidestep your fate constitutes a breach of the user agreement.
What does the penalty entail? Courtney finds out firsthand in the film’s overlong prologue. Dared to download Countdown while partying with her high school friends, Courtney learns she is set to die that night. Rattled by the prediction, the 17-year-old wisely refuses a ride from her drunk boyfriend that would overlap with her timer’s endpoint. Courtney immediately receives a notification that she violated the app’s terms.
When her countdown eventually expires, a paranormal presence throws the girl around her bathroom. At the same time, a tree branch impales the passenger seat where Courtney should have been sitting. One way or another, Courtney was destined to die.
This “can’t escape a preordained death” premise comes packed with imaginative “what if” possibilities. What if someone appeared on live TV or in a crowded public space at his/her appointed kill time? What if someone tried waiting out the final hour in the middle of a desert with no external dangers for miles around? What if numerous people had identical timers, indicating an extinction event mystery they had to solve and prevent to save their city?
“Countdown” doesn’t care about getting creative with its potential. While the film could have fun ratcheting up suspense with gruesome guessing games over what domino line of death will trigger someone’s demise, we see from the first scene that when Countdown’s demon has no other option, he just supernaturally slams someone’s head on a bathtub. Instead of clever kills, we get a ghoul invisibly tossing one guy down stairs and another guy paranormally pulled into the street to be struck by a passing truck. Snore.
The demon doing these deeds doesn’t even have a distinct design. He looks like a mud-covered vagrant dressed in rags. In a wishful thinking alternate universe where “Countdown” turned into a hit worth franchising, I can’t imagine how Funko would reduce the evil entity into a uniform Pop figure since he’s already minimized into a lackluster visual.
If I didn’t know better, I’d assume “Countdown” was made by pre-huge success Blumhouse. I can only assume producers either couldn’t swing a meeting with Blum or else Jason passed because it isn’t 2014 anymore.
However, “Countdown” is executive produced by Gregory Plotkin, who co-produced “Area 51” (review here), edited “Happy Death Day” (review here), and directed “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” (review here) among other projects. So someone with a hand on the film’s wheel still intimately understands Blumhouse’s multiplex-friendly formula from every available angle.
“Countdown” features Blumhouse’s basic brand of sterile scares suited for slumber parties, a clean look and lean edit, an easy-to-follow story, and a photogenic cast with vaguely recognizable names like Peter Facinelli playing comparatively uncomplicated characters. “You know the drill” plot points include running to a priest for a healthy dose of mid-movie exposition, unearned guilt over a loved one’s untimely death (“if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been hit by that drunk driver!”), and a pair of people providing comic relief to give the movie a pinch of snickering attitude.
This is all well and good when vanilla works fine as a flavor. For sprinkles, syrups, or anything with a slight splash of color, “Countdown” comes up empty handed on toppings.
Sticking with food metaphors, “Countdown” answers the question, what would a cheap Little Caesar’s Hot-N-Ready look like in PG-13 horror film form? It’s not as bad as Pizza Hut, but we’re still talking mass-market chain chow made from the most plainly palatable ingredients possible. It technically qualifies as pizza, but it’s not what you order when you want to satisfy your taste buds. It’s what you scarf down to stop your stomach from screaming, and quickly fades into the forgotten file of countless other dinner orders ultimately indistinguishable from one another.
NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.
Review Score: 40
Before you know it, viewers gradually transform into frogs slowly boiled alive without realizing the dangerous heat enveloping them until it’s too late.