‘Countdown’ Review

You don’t have to feel bad if you find yourself counting down the minutes that are left when you’re watching Countdown, STX’s and director-writer Justin Dec's latest horror flick. With a somewhat entertaining base idea of a killer app telling the user’s time of death, the film is constantly restarting itself and giving you hope that there will be a some kind of payoff. This isn’t the case though as it keeps bringing in bunch of half-baked secondary storylines throughout it, almost completely ignoring anything mildly interesting about the story.

Now, however, Countdown isn’t a complete disaster. It is decently done from technical standpoint. There are no real qualms about the horror essentials: set designs, sound, cinematography or score. Unfortunately none of the technical things really stand out here, making the whole viewing experience pretty forgettable. Comedian Tom Segura is a positive note when it comes to the acting performances, providing some much needed jokes in the middle of the dullness while also his character is used to strengthen the plot.

All rise for possibly the worst horror creature of the year, a forgettable blob and definitely-not-scary looking mess whose name (Ozhin) you struggle to remember afterwards. There is zero creativity in the horror moments involving Ozhin, being a step-by-step copy of the most generally used jump scares. The dialogue is laughably underestimating the audience best seen by creating family tension (the Harris’) without ever making us feel like we know the main character Quinn (Elizabeth Lail). Most confusing part of the movie is the #MeToo subplot which makes no sense considering it is only done to make the viewer feel the tiniest bit something towards the character of Dr. Sullivan (played in underwhelming fashion by Peter Facinelli). A real shame that the writers undermined and underdeveloped the whole thing just to pat themselves on the back.

Smileys: Tom Segura

Frowneys: Character design, dialogue, Peter Facinelli, originality

Too bad there is probably a countdown timer for the sequel already.

1.5/5