Well, this has been really fun, guys. Over the past 10 weeks, you and I have truly gone on a journey together.
We’ve covered 10 scary movies. We’ve attended a wedding gone terribly wrong. We’ve ghost hunted. We’ve hunted a killer clown. We were trapped in a Sharon Tate nightmare. We ventured into a sinkhole somewhere in Ireland. We got to hear some really excellent cello performances. We got to see Sally Draper get possessed by a demon. We swam with killer gators. We partied with zombies. And finally, we’re finding out the exact time of our deaths.
It has all led up to this moment: Countdown. A great title for the final movie in our 10 week countdown to Halloween. We’ve made it.
But was this a good movie?
Okay, come on. You knew Countdown wasn’t going to be a good movie. In this movie, an app tells you the exact time you’re going to die. Down to the minute and second. For most people, the app predicts some far off time like, you know, 63 years from now or something. But for people like Quinn Harris (played by Elizabeth Lail of You fame), that date is 2 days from today. But here’s the thing: now that Quinn knows this, per the terms and condition of the app, she cannot do anything to alter her fate. Doing this would be a breach of contract and would mean a demon would be after her.
But of course… ain’t nobody reading the terms and conditions. So Quinn doesn’t know this. So she changes her plans so that she doesn’t get killed. And guess what? Now a demon is after her. Oops.
So yes, the premise is hokey AF. I went into this movie expecting it to be bad, but also expecting to have a good time. Countdown definitely delivered on the badness and the fun-ness. So I was pleased.
You know what though? I also learned a few things from this horror film. First of all, maybe we all need to start reading the terms and conditions when we download these apps. Seriously, think about all the apps you download willy nilly. Do you know who coded that app (or whatever)? Do you know what they’re asking you to agree to in order to use their app? When you downloaded Venmo, do you know how many rights you signed away when you agreed to the terms and conditions? One minute, you’re denying your friend;s request to pay her back for your part of last night’s pizza. The next minute, a demon is coming for you.
I’m just saying. Read the terms and conditions. I’m not going to. That sounds boring. But maybe you should.
Yes, a lot of this movie is just people staring ominously at their phones.
I also learned that people are, like, really afraid of dying. Here’s the thing about this app. It doesn’t kill you. It just accurately guesses when you’re going to die. If people weren’t so afraid of dying and just accepted their fate when it came to them, demons wouldn’t come after them. It’s because people are so afraid of death that the app demon comes after them in the first place.
Of course, that seems obvious. Of course people are afraid of death, right? But I guess this movie got me thinking… why? Why are people afraid of death? We’re all going to die one day. And when you’re dead, you’re dead. And life won’t really matter anymore. Read the terms and conditions. Accept that death is a natural part of life. Then there would be no horror movie.
Oh, there’s a third thing I learned while I was preparing this review. There is an actual Countdown app in the app store. On the off chance that the app is real, I wouldn’t suggest downloading it. But the reviews are really funny, so definitely check those out.
Aside from learning a lot from this movie, I did think Countdown had its moments. I love a good horror comedy, and while I wouldn’t categorize this as full-on horror comedy, the movie had a couple of comedic characters thrown in for funzies. I’ve seen some reviews praise the grumpy phone repair hacker dude for the comedy he adds to this movie. And, yeah, he’s okay.
But I have to say, truly, I am here for the priest. The priest, played by P.J. Byrne, eats communion wafers by the sleeve as a nice midnight snack. He also got into religion because he geeks out about the bible like many people geek out about comic books. When he figures out this phone app has a demon inside of it (or whatever… the details are fuzzy), he’s actually pumped. I don’t know what it was about this character (the raw enthusiasm for spooky shit, maybe?) but he really worked for me.
What really didn’t work for me? Well, a whole lot of this movie felt like a rehash of other better movies, like The Ring and the Final Destination franchise. Countdown isn’t really doing anything new. But the worst part of this movie was, by far, the weird side plot of the doctor who sexually harasses nurses at work. To be fair, this subplot does culminate in an ending to this movie. Note: I didn’t say it’s a good ending or even an interesting ending. But it’s an ending. Mostly, it just felt forced. And there were other elements of this plot that could have been developed more instead. Like, Quinn’s relationship with her sister Jordan (played by Talitha Bateman), or Quinn’s half-baked romance with Matt (played by Jordan Calloway). Or, you know, you could have given me more priest jokes. I would have been down.
Overall, this movie was more entertaining than I was expecting it to be, especially considering its very low score on Rotten Tomatoes currently. Will I remember much about this movie come next Spooktober? Probably not. But was it a nice final send-off to this Spooktober? Absolutely.
Countdown is currently playing in theaters everywhere. If you’re looking for a mindless scary movie, I say go for it.
Now before I go, a quick look back at the ten movies we watched for this Spooktober. I thought as a final reflection, I would give out my awards for best and worst movies of Spooktober 2019. These are really great honors that will likely help these filmmakers get future projects green lit, so I tried to think long and hard about these choices. Here we go.
WORST movie of Spooktober 2019 goes to The Haunting of Sharon Tate, which should surprise no one. This movie was utter trash in every sense of the word. Bad story. Bad acting. Bad taste. Just bad.
The BEST movie of Spooktober 2019 is… The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Choosing a favorite was a bit harder. This movie and The Hole in the Ground and Ready or Not were nearly a three-way tie. I think The Blackcoat’s Daughter ended up winning out for me because the subject matter is just kind of my jam.
And there you have it. The first ever Book Squad Goals: Spooktober is in the books. I’m kind of going to miss it. What do you think, friends? Should I do this again to countdown to another holiday? Did we have fun? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.