Went to see the new horror movie Countdown, a lazy amalgamation of better (and worse) movies like The Ring, Final Destination, Nerve, and Unfriended. There’s no reason this movie should be any good… and the critical response has lived up to that. But the funny thing is, on the way to it being just another bad PG-13 horror movie with an allegedly unique cyber-twist, I realized I was enjoying it.
And I’m supposed to hate it. I mean, a movie where people download a phone app that tells you when you are going to die… and then makes sure you do. Tagline is “Death. There’s an app for that.” There’s no reason this lazy idea should be any good. Many of the negative reviews I see all agree it’s bad even though they, almost shame-facedly, admit that there’s some good elements to it. It’s as though they know they should hate it, it’s low-hanging fruit that’s easy to hate on, and even if they think some of its funny or interesting or cool, they can’t allow themselves to admit it.
Well, hell, I liked this movie. Yes, it’s about an app that tells you how long you have to live which can sometimes be fifty years or it can be two days. But it only works if you accept the user terms of agreement which, of course, no one reads. But, after getting your countdown, you change your plans to avoid your death, you are notified you have voided your terms of use and a demon will make sure you die. Yes this is all stupid and honestly the movie has a lot of generic, lazy attempts at scares. There is, logically, nothing that should work here.
But the movie has a weird, quirky sense of humor and some fun characters. There’s a sarcastic, customer-hating technical support guy who works at a phone store and is fed up with weird people complaining about a stupid app. There’s a nerdy priest who listens to rap music while working in the church library who is totally excited at the idea of a demon haunting a phone app. He’s a superfan of demons because it proves god. Both of these characters really brighten up this movie. But, while being funny, they never really mock the situation the main character is in… the movie largely takes the predicament seriously. And, almost despite myself, I started to really like the main character and wanted her to live. Unlike a lot of horror movies like this, they decided to make a likable character instead of series of assholes that you want to die. Kind of helps getting you invested in the story.
So, yeah, it’s not a great horror movie but, in that I cared about the lead character, that gave the movie enough suspense to save it. The humorous characters and quirky writing helped as well. So despite the fact its not particularly scary, it is particularly different than the usual cheap horror flicks. I fully suspect that I’m the only person on the planet to like this flick and there’s a fair chance you won’t like it yourself. But I think its worth the risk. Maybe when its on Netflix.
Score: 81