Countdown | 2019 | PG-13 | – 3.5.5

Why is “Countdown” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “terror, violence, bloody images, suggestive material, language and thematic elements.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few scenes of harassment and a couple of implied sex scenes, and some cleavage revealing outfits; several deaths caused by an unseen being with some blood shown, several jump scares and screaming, discussions of demons and discussions of drunk driving accidents ending in death; and some underage drinking, and at least 1 F-word and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

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When a newly graduated nurse (Elizabeth Lail) downloads a “death-clock” app that tells her she has only three days left to live, she is devastated. With the clock ticking, she must find a way to halt the supernatural forces controlling the app before she runs out of time. Also with Jordan Calloway, Talitha Bateman, Tichina Arnold, P.J. Byrne, Anne Winters, Charlie McDermott, Tom Segura and Peter Facinelli. Directed by Justin Dec. [Running Time: 1:30]

Countdown SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A doctor reaches inside a nurse’s cardigan and lifts out her ID badge, rubs her shoulder, smells her hair, and continues touching her, although she tries to walk away each time; he grabs her and she screams and he tells the hospital authorities that she harassed him and they fire her. A woman in an office rubs a man’s shoulder, unties his scrub pants, tries to kiss him and he refuses; she lifts her sweater to reveal her navel and abdomen and leaves the room.
► A closet door rattles and when a woman opens the door she sees a shirtless teen boy, who leaves and puts on his sweatshirt (we see his bare chest and abdomen). A shirtless man answers his front door at night (we see his upper chest). Three women in different scenes wear off-the-shoulder blouses that reveal cleavage.
► A man wearing a T-shirt, shorts and socks lies on the floor next to a woman friend’s bed; she invites him into bed and the camera cuts to the woman under covers (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A woman tells another woman that she also was sexually harassed by a man. A man’s picture appears in headlines stating that several women are testifying against him for sexual harassment.

Countdown VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – Four people paint a white salt-infused Star of David on a basement floor and a circle around it; we hear roaring off screen and the people step into the circle as a shrouded figure with glowing eyes appears and its hemline catches fire briefly when it touches the salt and emits a high-pitched electrical shrieking that lasts several seconds; a man sees a vision of his dead little brother and steps outside the circle, where an unseen hand grabs his ankle, pulls him away and a woman runs outside and sees the man as he is struck by a car and the camera cuts to the man slumped over the hood and pinned against a tree with his eyes glowing and then going black as he dies (no blood is shown); the teen girl comes outside and we see some blood on her side and her sister takes her to the hospital, where she is bandaged (we see a little blood).
► A teen boy in a hospital has a cast on his leg, walks on crutches and has dark circles under his eyes; he tells a nurse that he is predicted to die on the surgery table, he looks into a mirror and it cracks loudly, his phone gives off a maniacal laugh, he walks into a dark stairwell and gets locked in and something unknown appears and the screaming teen falls on the stairs (no blood is seen); we hear roaring and later hear that the teen is dead and may have committed suicide. During end credits, a man sitting at a restaurant table complains when the lights go out and the screen is black; we hear roaring and the man screaming, implying that something killed the man. A teen girl’s phone app flashes a notice of “User Agreement Broken” and she is followed by a man clad in black: the man appears ahead of her on a sidewalk and she rushes into her house where a shower curtain opens itself, her phone laughs in a maniacal voice, she drops a glass that shatters all over the floor, and something unseen pulls her up and out of the frame and then slams her to the floor in a blurry heap (we later hear that she died).
► A woman in a morgue opens a drawer and pulls out a male corpse, whose neck looks bruised and swollen and the closed eyes look red; she uses his fingerprint to unlock a cell phone and looks under his eye lids to find bloody whites and his head turns toward her, his eyes glow briefly and she covers him and replaces his body into the drawer. A man lies on the floor next to a woman friend’s bed; she invites him into bed and the camera cuts to the woman under covers with a monster arm with claws around her as she screams and the monster disappears. A teen girl in a bedroom hears creaking off-screen along with her dead mother’s voice and she hides under the bed; the bed flies up into the air and a strange figure lies next to the girl and shouts gibberish in a loud male voice as the girl screams and the figure disappears.
► In a washroom, from inside a stall we see bare lower legs and feet outside the stall and a man in the stall seems to lift a seat lid (we hear no urination); the camera cuts to a man outside the stall, turning to see the legs and feet inside an end stall as they move completely through the walls of each stall to the other end and someone whimpers and cries off-screen until the lights go out and a small boy appears, jumping on the man and beating him with fists (when the lights come back on there is no boy and we briefly hear whimpering and laughing off-screen). A woman lures a man into a dimly-lit closed corridor in a hospital where we see dirt, debris and streaked floors; she hits him in the body with a crowbar several times without blood flow, he falls, and a claw of scaly back fingers pulls him out of the frame and when the woman follows we see the man standing as he says, “I ought to kill you!” and he hits her with a metal bar; she then hits him with a crowbar and tries to stab him with a hypodermic needle filled with something she says will kill three people and something unseen throws her backward into a hallway and her ankle is temporarily injured.
► A teen girl in a morgue looks into an empty body drawer, something hits her on the head, she is thrown through a glass window, shattering it (we see some blood flecks on her face), and she lands in the hallway with a woman, as a tall shrouded figure with sharp teeth, long nose and glowing red eyes turns into a vision of the woman’s dead mother; the woman sticks a hypodermic needle into her own arm and the vision grows sharp red teeth and red glowing eyes as it roars loudly and a monster levitates the woman, grabs her head, shrieks and convulses, and then disappears and the woman falls unconscious; the word “Narcan” is written on her upper arm, a vial of medicine rolls onto the floor, and the teen girl fills a hypo and injects it into the arm beside the word causing the woman to come gasping back to life. Someone in a hospital corridor yells for help and we see a woman unconscious on the floor as a nurse injects Narcan into her upper arm (we see the needle enter with no blood) and she gasps loudly back to consciousness.
► We see a phone video of a panicky teen girl screaming about seeing a dead man and she is attacked by someone unseen as she screams and the phone screen goes blank (we hear that the girl died). We hear roaring off-screen and a grimacing man appears briefly in a woman’s bedroom, she screams and he disappears. A woman in a parking lot starts her car and backs into another car, but we see no damage as a man shouts at her; she sees a dark figure in the lot and revs her car, speeding into the other car again and causing a dent as the same man shouts at her and another man comes forward and threatens the first man’s life until the first man leaves.
► A woman tries a “death-clock” app and learns that she has three days to live so she tries to disable the app, to no avail, and meets a man who has also been predicted to die soon; the woman’s teen sister downloads the app and is set to die quickly as well, so the trio go to a priest who is fascinated with exorcisms. A man, a woman, and a teen girl visit a cemetery and as they leave, the woman notices that a “death-clock” app signified by a goat’s head has reinstalled itself on her phone.
► Teen boys and teen girls dare each other to try a phone app that will tell the user exactly how long he or she has to live and one girl sees that she has only three hours to live and avoids a ride with her drunk-driving boyfriend (please see the Substance Use category for more details).
► A man and a woman argue in a meeting. Two women argue in a hospital. A woman and her teenage sister shout and argue twice for several seconds. An older man at a bar complains loudly about conspiracy theories and calls out that Antarctica is the edge of the flat Earth.
► In a close-up, a large cake is cut with a big carving knife stabbed loudly through it. A woman cuts her finger on her cell phone and we see a drop of blood. We see an old-line etching of a man nude from the waist up, impaled on a sharp fence as a shrouded figure seems to menace him and we hear that a demon is torturing a man.

Countdown LANGUAGE 5

 – At least 1 F-word, 11 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 12 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, unstable, psycho, creepy, dumb, stupid, ridiculous, freak show, weird, smug, tough guy, kid, white man), exclamations (I swear), 1 religious profanity (GD), 13 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, Jesus, Can I Get A Hallelujah, God Has A plan For All Of Us). | profanity glossary |

Countdown SUBSTANCE USE

 – A teen girl rifles through a medicine cabinet filled with prescription bottles in a hospital closet, a woman holds a hypodermic syringe in two scenes and injects herself (she falls unconscious and likely dead), and the word Narcan is written on a seemingly dead woman’s arm and a bottle of Narcan rolls on the floor as a teen girl fills a syringe with the fluid and injects the woman, reviving her. A group of many underage teen boys and girls drink beer at a house party, a drunken teen boy staggers to his car as he slurs his words and argues with a teen girl in the car (she gets out of the car and walks away as he shouts angrily and squeals his tires), a woman says that her mother died when she was a teen and had sneaked out of the house for a party and when the mom drove around looking for her she was struck by a drunk driver that ran a red light, a man and a woman in a bar drink from glasses of beer and another glass of beer is shown on the bar, a man sits in front of a glass of beer on a bar, and a man and a woman in a restaurant hold glasses that contain wine (no one drinks). A large amount of cigarette smoke rises from an ashtray behind some books on a desk (no one is shown smoking).

Countdown DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Drunk driving, life and death, cheating fate, the supernatural, demons, murder, violence, survival, apps, phone technology and safety, emotional trauma, sexual harassment, taking a stand, overcoming one’s past, guilt, loneliness, relationships, love, family, forgiveness.

Countdown MESSAGE

 – Smartphone technology can really get out of hand.