Reviews: Countdown (2019) Movie Review
Genres: Horror, Thriller
Subgenres: Demons, Supernatural, Survival, Thriller, Folk Horror, Internet, Maniac, Satanic
Our honest review of Countdown (2019) breaks down its scares, pacing, and whether this horror movie truly stands the test of time.
Director Justin Dec‘s Countdown (2019) is a horror-thriller that does not try to reinvent the wheel and delivers a good horror movie experience. I watched this film in the movie theaters, and even though many of the jump scares could be sensed a mile away by any entry horror movie fan, the jump scares were accompanied by mostly different horrific images. Countdown (2019) had a movie budget of about $6.5 million and grossed a little over $39 million back, making it a success for Blumhouse Productions.
Elizabeth Lail (Netflix’s You TV series, Dead of Summer TV series, Once Upon a Time TV series) takes the lead role as Quinn Harris, whose mother passed away, leaving Quinn feeling guilty for her mom’s death. This leads Quinn to download the Countdown app to see when she will die and carelessly clicking the accept button on the user agreement. The Countdown app tells her she has under three days to live.
This event sets up the movie as Quinn tries to alter her time of death and cheat death. Later she learns it is not Death; she is trying to cheat, but the demon Ozhin. Ozhin has been showing to people the exact time of their deaths, but any altering of plans that affects your death will breach the contract and allow Ozhin the ability to claim your soul.
I enjoyed watching Blumhouse Production’s Countdown, for the most part, at the movie theaters with my family.
Like I said before, most of the jump scares were very telegraphed, allowing the watcher to anticipate the jump scare coming. Even though you saw that jump scare coming though, the jump scares were the tacky two-second jump scare I have seen a lot of lately. Also, the jump scares had only about two scenes where the audio went way above my comfort level and wrang my ears.
The pacing of this film started with Quinn being vulnerable, moving to her about to kill for her life, taking charge of the moment. If you have seen Netflix’s You TV series, Elizabeth Lail does a great job of doing this with her characters. For the most part, all of the actors did a fantastic job with their roles and scenes, but the gripe is with the priest, Father John, played by P.J. Byrne. His character was a bit tacky, and the scenes were played up a bit to be funny, but it just didn’t work. I think the script and direction did not help this character overall either.
Overall, this was one of the enjoyable horror movies of 2019, and I might even rewatch this film if it starts streaming on Netflix or one of the other streaming services. I know that many reviewers marked this movie harshly. Still, I think a 7/10 is the score I would give this film because I laughed many times, I liked the jump scares, and the movie was straightforward, focusing on the main parts of a horror movie even though some story elements could have been better. Father John was all types of weird and kind of threw off the movie experience.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- Countdown Rating Scores
- Our Score: 7/10
- Overall Score: 4.86/10
- IMDB: 5.4/10
- MetaCritic: 3.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 2.6/10
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