Horror is often at its best when it’s playing off of the zeitgeist of our current society. For example, a film like The Ring effectively unnerves its audience with a premise that hits close to everyday life, that what if a video you were watching turned deadly. By connecting to audiences that way, films have an even easier time of unnerving them with their distorted reality. Trying to adapt that formula into our modern times is the latest horror film Countdown.
Utilizing smartphone technology as a means of horror, Countdown finds its characters downloading an app that tells them when they are going to die. Check out the new trailer for the film along with a synopsis:
In COUNTDOWN, when a young nurse (Elizabeth Lail) downloads an app that claims to predict exactly when a person is going to die, it tells her she only has three days to live. With time ticking away and death closing in, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out.
Almost acting as a hybrid between Final Destination and Unfriended, this does have some promise as a campy fun horror film. Set for an October 25th release date, I am glad that a horror film is finally trying to capitalize on the Halloween market. Over the past few years, the presence of horror films has diminished around that time, with holdovers like Halloween or It often scaring off any competition, so hopefully, Countdown can inspire other releases to follow suit.
Where Countdown will succeed or fail is its creativity. Can the writer and director conjure up inventive ways to utilize this premise, or will the scares be much more of the same jump scares audiences have previously endured? It will be interesting to see how the final product turns out.
What are your thoughts on the Countdown trailer? Let us know in the comments!