The perfect Countdown to Halloween

Logan McGaheran, Writer

Countdown, a movie directed and written by Justin Dec, is about an app that correctly predicts the moment a person will die. The movie stars Elizabeth Lail as Quinn Harris, Jordan Calloway as Matt Monroe, Talitha Bateman as Jordan Harris, Tom Segura as Derek and P.J. Byrne as Father John.

In Countdown, Quinn Harris, a nurse who has recently finished medical school, discovers an app called Countdown with other members of the medical staff she works with. They all download the app and Quinn learns she only has three days to live, but believes that it’s only some random countdown. That night, one of Quinn’s patients, who also downloaded the app, is attacked by a mysterious creature and is killed when his timer reaches zero. Quinn realizes that the timer isn’t random and tries to find a way to survive her moment of death. Helping her along the way is Matt, a stranger who is predicted to die hours before Quinn, her sister Jordan, a cell phone shop employee named Derek and Father John, a pastor who studies demons. While hunting for a way to survive, Ozhin, the demon of the Countdown app, tortures the characters to try and stop them from changing their fate.

Justin Dec takes the classic horror-movie technique of the jump-scare and uses it at unexpected times, giving the audience a genuine shock of fear throughout the movie. The unpredictability also aides Ozhin by having the demon appear at random times. Overall, the movie uses cliche horror movie tropes in a unique way to make the movie more thrilling. 

In its opening weekend, Countdown made $9 million in the domestic box office, $3,150,000 in its opening night, and $10,719,000 internationally. For its reviews, Countdown received a 5.3/10 by IMDb, a 29% by Metacritic and a 27% by Rotten Tomatoes. Countdown is targeted toward teens and young adults; as it is rated PG – 13. Showtimes for Countdown can be found here.