Genre: Thriller/ Horror
Runtime: 90 minutes
Year: 2019
Starring: Elizabeth Lail, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Jordan Calloway, Peter Fascinelli, Tom Segura, Dylan Lane, Tichina Arnold, P.J. Byrne
Description: When Quinn (Elizabeth Lail) downloads an app that claims to predict the moment a person will die, it tells her she only has three days to live. With the clock ticking and a figure haunting her, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out.
Review: Looking for a new app, a couple a partying teens accidentally finds the app ‘countdown’, which tells you how long you have to live. Everyone downloads it and one of the girls sees she only has a few hours to live. Of course, no one takes it seriously and continue partying. When this girl goes home, she dies, exactly like the app predicted. Through her boyfriend, nurse Quinn learns about this app and together with her co-workers they all install the app. And Quinn finds out she only has three days to live.
What would you do if you knew you had three days left? Shift plans. And that’s exactly what the app doesn’t allow, because then you break the terms of use and you’ll be tormented by a demon for the short time that’s left. The premise sounds promising, a combination of “The Ring” and “Final Destination”, with even a hint of “Grey’s Anatomy”. But it’s one of the worst horror films I have seen in a long time.
The film is filled with unnecessary jump scares and really overuses them. And it never gets scary, at all. Because when the scares really have to be there, they simply don’t work.
The acting is okay, nothing bad here. It’s basically the bad script that brings this film down. It’s so poorly written. The film has a lot of subplots. Like a character that is all of a sudden introduced midway of the story and some kind of love story develops, that no one is really interested in. But the worst subplot is that of this doctor Quinn works with, that forces himself on her in a pretty violent way. She is clear she doesn’t want it and pushes him away. And then this doctor sues her for sexual harassment. Seriously? This doctor even becomes the main villain for a short part of the story, which makes it even more ridiculous.
And with bad writing also come some cringeworthy dialogues. There is this priest character, that was clearly brought in as the comic-relief, that literally says “Hallelujah high five”. And there are more bad quotes like this.
“Countdown” could have been a fun horror flick, because it had a good starting point. But it’s a total crap pile.
Rating: 1,5 / 5
