Countdown

Countdown

Starring Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Bateman, PJ Byrne

Directed by Justin Dec

The Story:
A group of teenagers discover an app called Countdown that will tell them when they will die.  While many of them get years, one gets mere minutes, and after she leaves she ends up dying as the counter reaches 0.  Her distressed boyfriend is sent to the hospital after a car accident where he meets nurse Quinn Harris (Elizabeth Lail), and warns her about the app.  She doesn't believe it and downloads it, learning that she has three days left to live.  After other events begin to unfold, she begins to believe that the app might be real, and sets out to prolong her life.  She tries to get a new phone, but the app follows her, and she finds solace in Matt Monroe (Jordan Calloway), who also has mere days left to live according to the app.

Things go from bad to worse for Quinn when she learns her younger sister Jordan (Talitha Bateman) has also downloaded the app, and has a few minutes less than Quinn.  They go to local priest Father John (PJ Byrne), who tells them that the curse is from an ancient demon and it's possible to stop it - as long as they live one second longer than the app says.  Can they beat the demon and survive past the app, or will it ultimately ring true?

The Synopsis:
31 years, 123 days, 11 hours, 48 minutes, 48 seconds.
I was so bored by the film that I decided to download the app and see how long I had left to live.  I was hoping it would be less than 90 minutes so I wouldn't live to see the ending of this drek, but unfortunately I'm going to live a long, full life instead.  So I had to sit through to the end, and found that this would've been a great spoof film, but unfortunately it seemed to want to take itself seriously.  It's a laughable effort for Halloween, and probably something you'd enjoy if you brought some friends with you and already knew it was going to be awful, but I don't think that was the purpose of the film.

The story seems reminiscent of other films that've done this concept right like "The Ring" and "Final Destination" -  you're given a certain amount of time to live, and you spend it trying to find out how to cheat death.  Only this time, it's an app rather than a videotape (honestly, who even knows - or owns - a VHS player anymore?  Poor Samara) or a Rube Goldberg-style string of events that leads to your demise, because death has to be hip and modern to be taken seriously, or not in this case.

So we get our hapless heroes as they struggle against the clock to prolong their lives, leading to the traditional locations to find an answer - the church, mostly (also, to retain its "hip, modern" feel, they also go to a cell phone store with a crotchety manager who's way too "cool" to even be there).  Yet instead of a classic Father Carrigan, there's a wannabe Seth Rogen wearing the holy cloth.  This eccentric priest informs our protagonists that they can survive if they can beat the clock, and sets out to do so.  Which means everything turns out fine and dandy, and they all go skipping together into the sunset.

Then I woke up and realized that wasn't how it ended, and somehow it was still going.  For a 90 minute film, it sure felt like a few years watching it - maybe this can be the new torture device for terrorists?  I'd be spilling my guts even before the opening title came on.

When it comes to the performances, they're laughably bad.  Elizabeth Lail is no Naomi Watts, and somehow her character has managed to become a nurse yet remains totally inept in the most normal situations.  When she discovers the app could be deadly, she goes to the strangest, most obscure ways to find a solution without attempting to use the most conventional, and offers little to no character development.  The same can be said for the remaining duo of reluctant heroes in new love interest Matt, played by Jordan Calloway, who just moves to the beat of his own emotional drum, and Quinn's sister Jordan, played by Talitha Bateman, who exists solely as the plot point to give Quinn a more urgent sense to stop the madness.  Then there's Peter Facinelli who plays a doctor with ulterior motives that involves a side story that distances ourselves from the main story and somehow is more laughable than the main one, even though it touches a very tough, personal struggle that shouldn't be taken lightly, but does due to poor writing - which falls on the director as well, who does both with as much subtly and class as a bull in a china shop.

When it comes to the scares - after all, this IS supposed to be a scary movie - there's none to be had.  Even the jump scares aren't scary at all because they're all pre-programmed into the script at the most obvious times (oh, a girl is looking at a laptop and closes it, I'm SURE nothing will be behind it!).  The demon itself looks almost like the great god Cthulhu but the designers decided to stop halfway through and decide it looks "scary enough."  When I saw the film I was literally the only person in the theater, and never felt a shiver - but that could just be because I got 31 years and change left to live, so I can do whatever I want!  Maybe I'll skydive without a parachute, or watch this film again - both are equally appalling.

The Summary:
For a horror movie that provides an app that'll tell you when you die, "Countdown" should've downloaded the app itself, as it would've just come up as 00 - dead on arrival.

The Score: D-