Review: Countdown Is the Nadir of the Recent Techno-Centric Horror Wave

If there’s an ethos that Justin Dec’s film believes in, it’s only that “death sucks.”

Countdown
Photo: STX Entertainment

Another in a long line of recent techno-centric horror films, Countdown skates by on a high-concept idea that proves to be a smoke screen for how incessantly and unimaginatively dependent writer-director Justin Dec is on an array of demonic horror tropes. In the film, death has a phone app that, once downloaded, starts a countdown to the exact moment of your inevitable demise, and nothing you do to your phone or the undeletable app can change that. Why exactly death needs an app to create a looming sense of dread in its victims is never explained, and seems particularly unnecessary when the Grim Reaper shows up anyway to torture anyone unlucky enough to have less than a few hours left on their clock.

Countdown quickly reveals itself to be disinterested, unlike Unfriended and Unfriended: Dark Web, in wrestling with morality in a virtual world. Indeed, the film’s killer app exists for no other reason than to start a death clock, and the only cautionary tale that could possibly be gleaned from its carnage is: Make sure to read those pesky end-user agreements. But Countdown glosses over the fine print, only thinly developing the rules of death’s pointless game. In the world of this film, sexual assaulters like Dr. Sullivan (Peter Facinelli) and racist barflies like Gerry (John Bishop) are given decades to live, while a sweet, young RN like Quinn Harris (Elizabeth Lail) is left with only hours to find a way to evade her seemingly inescapable fate. If there’s an ethos that the film believes in, it’s only that “death sucks.”

Dec tries to lend some weight to Quinn’s struggle through a #MeToo-inspired subplot, but it proves ultimately half-baked, only existing to provide a potential surrogate victim to disrupt death’s plans. The filmmaker also homes in on Quinn’s rocky relationship with her younger sister, Jordan (Talitha Eliana Bateman), whom she’s been estranged from since the recent death of their mother. But Dec’s script barely scratches the surface of their pent-up feelings of regret and guilt, only lending their emotions a modicum of credence in a brief, throwaway scene that comes to feel like an afterthought, given how quickly the film reorients itself around its stock in trade: an endless parade of jump scares and blaring aural assaults.

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Once Jordan downloads the app, defying Quinn’s warning, the two are brought into the orbit of Matt (Jordan Calloway), a buff, handsome guy who’s also consumed by guilt over the death of a loved one. This plot wrinkle might suggest that the film is steering its way toward some type of treatise on grief and trauma, maybe even an explanation for why death might be drawn to emotionally wounded victims while leaving the likes of Dr. Sullivan off the chopping block for so long. But no, the trauma that affects Jordan, Quinn, and Matt is seen only as a weakness, an explanation for why they’d willingly leave perfect safety during their final showdowns with death. In the end, no one is truly safe from death, and as per the film’s cynically knowing wink before the credits roll, it seems that we’re also not going to be safe from a Countdown 2.

Score: 
 Cast: Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Peter Facinelli, Dillon Lane, Tichina Arnold, P.J. Byrne, Tom Segura, Matt Letscher, Anne Winters  Director: Justin Dec  Screenwriter: Justin Dec  Distributor: STX Entertainment  Running Time: 90 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2019  Buy: Video

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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