Had Countdown merely consisted of this opening segment, it could have been an enjoyable short film. This is all evident in the film's opening eight-minute prologue, which is actually, genuinely a good watch. It's a modern mash-up of The Ring and Final Destination, with a technological trap that curses the user like The Ring and then as the seconds tick closer it becomes a paranoid guessing game of what could befall the victim, much like the sneaky appeal of the Destination movies. There's a reason Countdown almost kind of works. Quinn tries deleting the app, even buying a new phone, but it cannot be stopped, and she's now having strange visions and meeting up with other users who fear the app's threats are very real. It's only a countdown timer and some people get ninety years and others get three days. Her younger sister downloads a new cool app that predicts when a user will die. Quinn Harris (Elizabeth Lail) is a nurse who is still coming to terms with her mother's tragic death, her feelings of guilt over the accident that caused it, and being harassed by her boss (Peter Facinelli). It's also unfortunate because, after having seen this 2019 Countdown, that there won't be any other versions of this worthwhile premise. Anyone can independently come up with the same high-concept premise, it's just funny to me the similarities between the two. I don't hold any suspicion with Dec and the filmmakers behind this version of Countdown. I still have the pitch document and, if I do say so, it's not bad. We even called it… "Countdown." Our pitch, which we presented to a producer and, as far as I know, never got further than that, would have opened bigger and bigger, starting with a mysterious slasher killer on a college campus that opens up to, eventually, a self-aware machine arranging life-and-death judgements and manipulating technology to see it through. In 2015, I and a screenwriting pal of mine Joe Marino were developing a TV series pitch for… a mystery involving a website counting down to the specific second of specific people's deaths. Nothing personally with this movie written and directed by Justin Dec but because of the concept, a killer countdown ticking down to a specific person's ultimate demise.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |