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Countdown

5/10

Stars: Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Bateman, Peter Facinelli, P J Byrne, Tichina Arnold, Dillon Lane

Director: Justin Dec

Why are teens 'n' twenties always the protagonists in peril in these Final Destination-type scarefests? Well, there's a box-office answer to that, but it wouldn't do any harm to have an older character thrown in with those about to meet their maker; there are one or two here, admittedly, but they only hover on the periphery.

Appropriately, as we near the 2020s, the devil here is not in the detail but on your mobile, in the form of an app that tells you just how long you have to live. Most of a circle of teens trying it out are told they'll live into their eighties and nineties, but two discover they have only days till doom - and all their attempts to thwart destiny fail.

Wouldn't they still die even is they hadn't agreed to instal the app and its terms and condition? Hmm, doesn't do to ask questions like that in horror films.

At any rate, we soon meet our main character, a trainee nurse, Quinn (Lail), who already has enough trouble on her hands, fending off an amorous doctor (Facinelli) at ER and reining in a rebellious younger sister (Bateman), without inheriting the dreaded Countdown app as well.

Turns out Nurse and sis both have only a few days to avoid the Grim Reaper and Quinn, suspended from the hospital after the lecherous doctor alleges she came on to him - not comfortable with that - and joined by another candidate (Calloway) for the Pearly Gates, has but a short time to evade a grisly fate.

This is pretty much a one-trick pony of a film, although there is a demon at the end, and a mighty clever one at that to invent an app like this, and one that cannot be erased.

Lail is entirely adequate in the lead, although it's hard to envisage stardom beckoning for any of those involved in this standard creeper fare. A potty priest (Byrne), enlisted to lend a hand (or a cross), merely underlines the film's uncertainty as to when to play for laughs and when for chills.

David Quinlan

USA 2019. UK Distributor: STX International. Colour by ForoKem.
90 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 24 Oct 2019