Countdown

COUNTDOWN - STX Entertainment

Countdown, directed by Justin Dec, is the new "basic bitch" equivalency in the same vein of Truth or Dare in that it is a horror that takes a rather exciting and interesting twenty-first century premise and delivers it with a tremendously underwhelming execution.

The screenplay and dialogue from writer-director Dec is, quite frankly, appaling. The films opening ten-minute preface delivers a borderline horrific example of Hollywood-esque writing trying to evoke seventeen-year-old kids with disastrous results — a cliche as old as time that still seems to be repeated and rinsed with no avail. Within the first ten minutes, the film is utterly tiring and excruciatingly painful to bare witness. What begins on such a sentiment continues with no evolution or intrigue throughout. The premise, while on paper undeniably appealing, is a colossal failure with no real flair or sense of concrete direction.

Final Destination meets The Ring but with lacking imagination and bravado of each defining horror picture. There is nothing here that surprises or in any form defies expectations in regards to predictability, failing to take chances to derail genre conventions and instead cowardly embraces such with gloriously, ineffective prowess. Granted, there are a few sequences of suspense here and there with one or two notable examples of decent iconography, explicitly concerning the design of the villain that is a similar rendition of The Curse La Larona.

Lead actress Elizabeth Lail as Quinn Harris offers little in terms of depth and emotional weight. A character that has incredibly limited layers but yet the film demands the audience to have engagement when it simply does not exist. A somewhat random sub-plot concerning worker harassment is thrown in for good measure to forfeit the heroine and villain, but said sequence is so misplaced and underwhelming it undermines the seriousness and gravity of such circumstance that victims of which have to go through.

Throughout Countdown, there is never a clear cut vision. Tonally it is all over the place with dire writing and flat cinematography from Maxime Alexandre, capped off with perhaps the worst sequel set up available to watch this year in the film’s the last scene. Offering the most perplexing, undermining experience of what the audience has just had to witness in the previous ninety minutes should be considered a staggering achievement in its own right.

Countdown is released October 25, 2019.