In Theaters Now – Countdown

Hey everyone, it's Movie Mastery in theaters now! That's right, I lied and said we weren't gonna do one for this month, but then it turns out Halloween is the last day for Movie Mastery this month, and so goddammit we went and saw a movie in theaters. So hold on, you didn't actually lie, you were just dumb. No, I lied. I said we're not gonna do it this month because fuck it, and then I decided not to do that. I was a liar. I was a liar and a thief. Me, John. You're a liar and a thief and kinda dumb. John, liar, thief, and my co-host Jeff, kinda dumb. Hey now, don't turn it back on me. Now I'm disappointed in myself.

I could have really used a win today. Hi, everyone. I'm Jeff, and I'm sad. Oh, we've swept places. I know. Normally, I'm the happy ebullient one. Yeah, and now I can't say words, and you're sad, so it's fine. We just completely went the other way. I don't even want to record today. I just want a stuffed crust pizza. I want a stuffed crust pizza and a constructed elaborate cocoon out of Kleenex. I'm not sick. I am. What's the other difference?

So we went and saw Countdown in theaters, which, if you don't know, is the movie about, there's an app and it shows when you're going to die and then you die. It's the bad cell phone movie. It's not Pulse. It's the bad cell phone movie, unlike the other very good horror cell phone movies. No, I mean, it's about a bad cell phone. A bad cell phone that does bad things. Not a cell phone that is like... That sounds like a full moon production. Like an evil cell phone that kills you. I wasn't saying anything about the title of the film at all. I was just saying the cell phone, its ethics are bad. It's got bad praxis. Yeah, it's got bad praxis. Don't bring praxis into this.

That cell phone is a landlord and it's gouging its people. Oh, for Christ's sake. No, all I was trying to say is that the cell phone is, I mean, it's one of those movies about evil cell phone technology. Yeah, I mean, I get it. It isn't really. I mean, the whole thing nowadays is you're either going to have someone that's a slasher or you got to do something like, ooh, something you normally use is evil. So we got to have like evil TVs and evil cell phones. I wouldn't discount it to these days that there are still a whole bunch of movies about like.

harmless party games from the 80s. That seems to have become a thing. I don't think we're that far off from like them moving from the ones that kids or that like teenagers used to make out to just kid games. Like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, the horror movie has to be coming out in like 2021. I wish that was true. I mean, I would 100% guarantee you that if someone came out with just like Pinata and it was a horror movie, fuck yeah, I would be on board. Coming this December. Heads up, seven up. You'll put your head down and stay there, man.

Why can't we do that? Why isn't that a thing that more people are doing? Well, I can't do it because if I ever direct any movie at all, it's going to be an 80s boob comedy. Obviously. If you want to direct movies that are just antique children's games, but now they're horror films, then I will support you in every way. And when mine makes money, I'll go ahead and throw some behind your project, which will immediately be panned by everyone. That's not true. We do exceptionally well with bus perverts. We got to get that bus pervert demographic on lockdown.

So countdown, we watched it. It was, uh, now I'm going to say for my part, not as bad as I assumed it would be from the commercials. Like I thought this was going to be atrocious. Uh, I'm going to, okay. Yeah. Before the spoilers, it's a, it's an effective delivery of jump scares. If you want jump scares, this is the movie for you. Oh yeah. I mean, that's.

Pretty much anyone who's like, oh, did we have a way to really build tension in our movie? No, that's not the concept. Sweet. It's jump scare o'clock. That's all we got now. Now, is it a movie about stupid people doing stupid shit? Yes. But it is an effective deliverer of jump scares. Also, I love that they just dropped in the male lead at random about halfway into the movie. There's also this guy. And this guy's here. And I'm like, huh. I don't think we ever get his name. Oh, I know we do. I just don't think it matters. When do we get his name? When he introduces himself. I doubt that's true. Oh, I know it's true. I'm pretty sure that's not true. Oh, it's 100% true. I was busy talking to a bus pervert at the time.

And the bus pervert was paying very close attention. I'm very key with my demographic. I'm always down there among the bus perverts and the uncles that still have Playboys. All right. You know what? We are going to play a little ditty, and we are going to be right back with a full, in-depth, spoilerific review of Countdown. It's the old Countdown!

All right, let's get into Countdown. This is a traditional classic movie, John, and it opens with a bunch of people who don't matter so they can establish the rules. Oh, yeah. No, this is very clearly, like, the whole movie very much plays by horror trope rules. Yes. Like, there's not a lot of deviation from your standard, this is the plot structure of a horror movie. No. It introduces a wise character halfway through that they have to go back to later for additional help.

Oh, yeah. It's got the opening two minute scene that establishes the rules of the movie, but with characters that they can kill off without affecting the plot of the movie. And the big thing is when you introduce the people at the beginning that you're going to murder, you have to make them be like completely disposable. And then as soon as that's done and you get to the main plot, the first person you see, the main character, has to be something that's... fairly saintly. Yeah, you have to meet, like, the perfect person so that you're not going to feel that bad when the horrible thing doesn't get them. Yeah, because when you start out, you're like, what is this? Oh, we're going to have, you know, some high school jock, and we show him bullying someone, and then he dies, and then we go to our protagonist after the, like, opening credits, and they're giving out, like, I don't know, meals to the homeless. You're like, okay, I get it. Yeah, we've seen this enough. So this one opens at a high school party, and at that high school party, they are getting right down to the business of explaining the rules of this film, because there's, like, a bunch of kids sitting around a table. They're playing a stupid fucking card game, and then one of them's like, hey.

You hear this app? Hey, have you heard of this app? Jean Lou. Yeah, and they're talking about like, oh, I've got Countdown 2 Fitness or... Whatever. And they're like, oh, you mean, is this it? Countdown? Like, no, I told you it was called Countdown to Fitness. Yeah, that's right. Because one of them was like, no, I don't want to eat that. I'm using the Countdown to Fitness app to keep myself skinny all the time. And they're like, oh, I want a Countdown to Fitness app. Is it this one that's just called Countdown? No. Is it this one that says Countdown that says, I'll show you when you die? That sounds like the thing you mentioned. Although this does establish a running theme that I actually greatly appreciate over the course of this film right here. This is the first time we see the app purchase page for the Countdown app. And it consistently has three and a half stars. Yes, it is 3.6 stars specifically. And every time it pops up, I'm like, who's rating it?

More or less. Is this most people are giving it three or four? Are a few people rating it one? I think people rate it either immediately and they give it a five star because it's fun or they hear its notification noise once and they rate it a one. Well, I mean, the people who are rating it one then are the people who are going to die because they're the only people that get that noise. We don't know that for sure. We spend very little time with people that have the app and it says a long time for their lifespan. We don't know if it's like, you have 30 years till you die.

Well, the only time it goes off, well, we'll get into this. We'll get into this. Anyway, so they all decide they're going to download the app, and the game is whoever has the shortest amount of time to live has to drink all the drinks. Also, one of them doesn't want to play the game because she doesn't believe in that kind of superstition and crap. Whatever, she downloads it anyway. She does, but they have to peer pressure her. And she's the one who has the lowest numbers, so she has to drink. Thankfully, her boyfriend shows up to chivalrously drink a whole bunch of alcohol for her. You think he just chivalrously shows up to be like, hey guys, don't play this stupid game where you're making someone drink ten beers. But whatever, high school. Yeah, no, he showed up, he was like, oh, excuse to get drunk. Yeah.

Ooh, social acceptability. Nice. All right. I won't have to deal with this crippling alcoholism until I'm in my 30s. So they go to leave later, and he is drunk and getting behind the wheel. Oh, by the way, her amount of time left to live was like three hours. Yeah. The other ones were all like, I'm going to live 50 to 60 years. Yeah. That's how much she won by. So she's getting in, and the app has made her freak out a bit about the whole, like, I'm going to die super soon. She's like, no, you can't drive. You're too drunk. I'm already worried about death now anyway. Yeah, yeah. She's like, and notably, she doesn't...

She didn't want to let him drive in the first place, and this whole scene is just a lot of her being like, oh my god, three hours till I die? I don't believe in this stupid app. It's just a random number generator. But... But what if? Three hours till I die?

but I don't want to die. No, I mean, it's not that bad, but it's just her freaks out. You know, like you do. Yeah, she's like, look, you know, even if I don't believe in this thing, now that death has been on my mind, the idea of getting into a car with a drunk person, I suddenly realize maybe not the best idea. Also, apparently she lives close enough to easily walk there. Yeah, so she's like, fuck you, I'm walking home. And they have a fight about this. She's like, hey, let me drive the car. You're very drunk. And he's like, I'm not a drunk. You know I drive better when I'm drunk. He just does all the things. He does all the drunk things. All the drunk, like literally all the things that drunk people only do in like TV shows. Yeah.

And then finally, she's like, no, fuck you. I'm going to walk. And then he drives along her and yells at her for a while. And then he gets mad and drives off, probably because he thought he was going to get some sweet makeouts. Now, this is where we get our first scream at from the app, because she has broken the end user license agreement that she clicked except for on the app. We will not know what that means until much later in the film, but it is apparently the way that the app screams at you. Yeah, the app screams at you if you break your EULA. Now, notably, this whole movie is all about how important it is to read the EULA, apparently. I guess. Or at least not to buy apps that were clearly made by demons.

So, and also, the app's notification is the worst. Yeah, it is a, like, horror movie scream, and then... And a loud buzzer sound. Yeah, it is several different noises all at once, and you're like, that's the most annoying thing I've ever heard. Not just the most annoying thing, it is, I would say it probably accounts for 30% of the shock scares in this movie are just it going off at inopportune times. Yeah, there's a lot of, once you break the Eula and you're gonna die soon, then you start getting visions of, like, this dude in a black figure who sort of looks like death, and...

So she gets a few of these and is freaked out. And there's a lot of moments where it's, what do you do? Oh, I kind of look off and I see someone in a cloak and then I look around and then he's not there. And then that goes off. Yeah. Shock scare. Or you see something in a mirror and there's a loud noise and we cut to another scene. Don't worry about it. So she gets home. She, for someone that is like obviously freaked out about the whole like, oh no, what if this app is real? Well, some dude was following her like all the way home. Some dude was like three steps behind her. No face, hooded cloak. But when she finally gets into the house, she's like, well, I think I'll just stay in the dark.

Like, doesn't turn any lights on, and instead of going like, oh, I've got three minutes left to live, I guess I'll go, I don't know, into my room and lock the door and sit on my bed for three minutes and just wait it out. She's like, oh, I'll go into the bathroom. Nothing bad has ever happened in a bathroom. And I'll get a glass, and I'll get just water flowing. Maybe I'll stand on a ladder. I think I'll organize my creepy doll collection tonight. I'm gonna get all my knives out and start polishing them. Like, just come on. If you're that freaked out about it, just go chill for three minutes. It's three minutes. Who cares? Anyway, this, you know, what happens is the unusual license agreement goes off, and then for some reason, it moves your timer from zero minutes to eight minutes. Like, you have eight minutes until you die now, I guess, instead. No, it's the same thing.

Then she sits around for a little while. I'm going to plow forward as if the thing I said was right because I'm pretty sure it is. But anyway, she goes to the bathroom. She sits there. It counts down. It gets right before she's going to die. And then some invisible figure like throws her into the ceiling and she lands and knocks her head on the bathroom. Yeah, basically telekinetics her into the ceiling and then swings her back and forth on the ceiling for a while before throwing her head against the bathtub. And then she dies when the thing hits zero. And this establishes why this movie is not as good as the Final Destination movies. I mean, there's a lot of reasons because the Final Destination movies are fun and interesting. Oh yeah, because they have cool Rube Goldberg deaths. Rube Goldberg. This is just, if you don't follow the end user license agreement, a random invisible or sometimes visible demon shows up at the exact time it beats you to death.

And the other thing is, at least with Final Destination, there was the possibility of if I actually try and have help with it, I can avoid the death that then comes for me later. Whereas this is just like, what's this? Oh, an all-powerful, invisible demon murders me. Can I do anything? No. It does overcreate the same weird paradox that the Final Destination movies have never bothered to explore either, which is that there's a death time. You have an exact time at which you're going to die. Yes. And the Final Destination movies have the same rule. And if you miss that time, then death comes for you. Good old Tony Todd comes in and sets up a Goldberg device and murders you in order, in very specific order. Yeah. In the order you would have died. Yep. Which means...

Structurally speaking, that means you have functional immortality until that exact moment. Yes. Now you can fuck yourself up. I was going to say, while you can go like, oh, I'm invincible, there are definitely times where you're like, oh, oops, I'm in a coma, and then I'm just going to, like, die as soon as the time is up. Hey, you know what? If a demon's coming after me or whatever, that's a good way to go. In a coma. I'll shoot myself in the face, go into a coma, and the demon can get me from my sleep. That way I don't get hit by some weird demon in a creepy, haunted part of the hospital. Nah, you'll wake up from the coma, like, with one minute to live, and the demon will be like... Ah, gotcha. Goddammit, demon. You can heal people from comas? Yeah. Yeah, that's my other thing I can do. I got...

Vague, unlimited power. Okay, great. So, yeah, she gets beat to death, and then she's dead. We pan to her boyfriend. Not pan, we cut to her boyfriend. It's a very long pan. Single shot. They pan out of the bathroom across the city streets. Yeah, none of this, of course, being pan. All of these would be different types of shots. One long pan scan.

Uh, and the boyfriend has crashed his car and right where his girlfriend would have been sitting, like a bunch of tree branch snap things have gone through the seat. Yeah. So you're like, oh, she would have died at the exact same time had she been in the car. And now this guy's like, oh shit, fuck balls. Yep. Yep. It's a bad time for this guy.

I think when does he use the app? Because he also uses the app. We'll see it in a second. Okay, cool. Because now we're going to we get the front credits and then we see, of course, our heroine of the movie who is working as a nurse at a hospital delivering food to people and generally just being like nice and a good person. She's the best nurse at the whole hospital and everyone thinks so. Yeah.

She's still a trainee nurse, but everyone there is like, you're so nice. All the patients love you because you're so caring and a good person. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to you. Now, the one bad thing in her life as a nurse at nurse hospital is that the same bad doctor that was a bad doctor in Nurse Jackie is here being a bad doctor. Yeah, we don't get confirmation on that for a bit, but it's pretty clear that you're like, oh, this guy's a little rapey. Yeah, he's the one, if you ever watch Nurse Jackie, he's the one that has two moms and is weird about touching people's boobs.

and he's just a piece of shit character and you really wish they'd stop giving him storylines. Well, there you go. There you have it. He's in this. Thank God. I was like, oh, fuck that guy. I don't know. I've seen him in other things. I've never watched Nurse Jackie. I have passed through the room where Nurse Jackie is playing on a number of occasions.

So eventually doing her rounds, she sees the boyfriend. He's at the hospital. His leg is all fucked up and he's going to go in for surgery. And he's afraid because the app that he has, the countdown app, shows him dying at the same time that surgery is going to take place. Yeah. So he's like, oh, I don't want to go into surgery. I will die in surgery. You will definitely die. I'm like, but you're just going in for like leg surgery. I'm not sure. There's not really a whole lot of complications that can go wrong with this. It's very routine. We're doing the standard add extra legs to you surgery. You're going to come out the other side of this a centaur. It's a proven surgical procedure. It's normal to be worried, but please.

Everyone's doing it. We just sew the back half of a horse onto your back half, and next thing you know, you've got a horse butt and a human butt. And your human butt poops into the horse body and then out the horse butt. Now, yes, it's true that the back half of a horse body can't live on poop alone, but it's okay because when it starts to die, just bring it in and we'll trade it for a new horse body. We call it the Horse Human Centipede.

Yeah, so she kind of gets weirded out by the dude and then he goes back to his room. And that's when she gets a surprise party for, hey, congratulations, you're going to be a real nurse. Your training is done. And at that point, everyone in the hospital is just sort of shooting the shit. And she has to bring up like, hey, did you hear about the death app? Yeah, have you heard about that new death app that tells you when you're going to die? Yeah, you know, death, there's an app for that. And then the Catholic nurse is like, I don't ever want to know that kind of information. That can't be good. And then the other nurse is like, I want to know. That sounds like fun.

And so, you know, like three of them download it and you get like there's a priest as well. There's a weird stoner guy who's like, oh, sweet, I'm gonna live for another 48 years. And then Perv Doctor's like, I'm gonna live for 52 more years. And she downloads it, does our main person, Zoe Quinn. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not sure where Zoe got in your head there, but it's Quinn. Yeah. And Quinn is like, oh, no, I've got two days to live or whatever. She has three days to live specifically. A little less. It's like 34 hours or some nonsense. So she's like, oh, shit, that's not good. I need to start doing a bunch of vague things to solve my problem. Yeah. At first.

She's just like, oh, well, that's sad. It's an app. Who cares? It's not real. Except she does have a little moment of like, oh, I saw a thing. And is this real? I love that her hospital has an abandoned part for spooky things to happen in. Oh, yeah. And it's right next to like a very clearly well lit, already done in normal area of the hospital is like a door that says like.

don't dead open inside. And then you go through and it's like, oh, this is the renovation part of the hospital where we've stuck all of our chains with hooks on them that we'll need later. Yeah, it's insane. They get to push aside one of those like plastic slat drop things that you use to like keep the cold in a walk-in refrigerator. And then once you're in there, you're like, oh, so this is where you store all your dust and spiders and empty rusting oxygen tanks. I'm so glad to be in here. And you'd think, oh, okay, you're doing renovation. That's why like some tiles are missing or whatever. Except it's just sort of haphazard and there's still things like, oh, there's a bunch of like little...

trays of lockers or like a little metal sheeting things here that don't go there. Also, it's several floors of renovation that's happening because there's a part near the end of the film where a fight falls down a hole and is still in abandoned hospital. So apparently they just picked up an extra wing to add onto the hospital. They built that wing haunted for fun. Yeah, they got a haunted wing. Yeah, it was a grant from the Michael Myers Foundation. Some famous dead guy was like super into being a creepy ghost man. It was like Vincent Price died in this hospital and he was like, ah, yes, I'll leave my fortune to you provided you build a haunted hospital adjacent.

So she needs to fill out the last of her paperwork in order to become a true and actual nurse. But she's missing her birth certificate, so she's got to go home. And it turns out, ooh, she doesn't do that often. Yeah, there's trouble at home, it turns out, because when she walks in, it's like the middle of the night. And when she walks in in the middle of the night, everyone's asleep, she's rustling through some paperwork at her dad's desk, and all of a sudden she hears a noise and sees the closet door move. Oh, and it's her little sister with some dude in the closet. Making out with some shirtless dude.

And they have a bit of a spat, and she sees her dad, and the dad is like, oh, it's so good to have you around here, even though I was just woken up out of my sleep. I don't think she's not there very often. I think that sister she has is just a brat, and it's a good excuse for being mean to her. No, I think it's both. Okay, that's fair. Because she blames herself for her mother's death, and so after her mother died, she just sort of hasn't come home often. By the way, we don't get the full confirmation in the movie, but it's heavily implied that her mother died by installing a landline app. Sometime in the... Oh, yes, the landline app. In the mid-90s. Oh, yeah. Remember that great early 90s horror movie, Star 6ix9ine?

Oh my gosh, that'd be an amazing... Dial 1-800-COLLECT and die immediately. They'll 1-800-COLLECT your soul. And then Carrot Top shows up to get it. I'm willing to work these aspects into my 90s style boob comedy. That's fine, we can have both. Because the standard 90s TNA horror is fine. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, it's still going to happen. So it's going to be a TNA horror movie about a child party game. I feel like we're really... It's going to be an interesting thing. It's a very interesting thing. Yeah, I think we'll just have to call it Cornhole.

No, thank you. Oh, okay. Can I just argue with money? No. Okay. I mean, you can't argue with money. You would be a crazy person. John, I will give you $5 to make a movie with me called Cornhole. Five American dollars. And it's a mix between lots and lots of butt shots and lots and lots of haunted cornhole tables. Lots and lots of haunted butts. Yeah, the butts are haunted as well. Everything's haunted. Everything's haunted.

Anyway, the dad is like, hey, we're going to go to your mom's grave in a couple days. Put some flowers out. If you want to come with us, we would love that. She's like, yeah, sure. That sounds great. I think I can move stuff around because nurses normally have like insane schedules. Oh, yeah. She's like, probably I can do that, but I'll let you know. Yeah. And then the sister's like, you're so busy all the time. You're never here. Although the sister for just a brief moment here is kind of tail between her legs because she's feeling out whether or not big sister Quinn is going to report her for having a boy in the house, which she does not. No, because she don't care. Yeah. The only reason she's not here is because she doesn't like her sister. It's because she feels guilty.

I have straight up 100% forgotten when she puts it in her sister's head to install the app. She sees the app. She's a little sister. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, she's like, oh, what's this? She's like, oh, what's Countdown? Oh, don't touch that. Don't ever install that app. Which is the wrong thing to say. Which should have been like, oh, it's for finances. Oh, this is a Countdown until I need to do my taxes. It's for my period. Ew, gross. I'll never install that app. There we go. Problem solved. Oh, good.

So, okay. So she gets her birth certificate and leaves. And then some stuff happens. The movie's over. Thanks so much for checking in with us here at Movie Mastery. Okay. So this is where we get some more spook-em-ups. She starts to see some things. Oh, right. Because it turns out that the rules are if you break the end-user license agreement, a ghost can mess with you until you die. That's the rules. If you just accept your death and don't change anything, then you're fine and then you die. But if you fuck with it at all, then a ghost gets to mess with you. So the...

the boyfriend that was in the hospital is like, oh, I'm going to put off surgery. Like, he leaves instead of being where he should be for surgery. And of course, he gets the screamy, laughy app notification that he broke the agreement. And then he... John, I'd like to pause for a second to have a long, boring conversation about free will and determinism. Because ultimately, this movie is a very strong question about both of those things. Elaborate. Well, you see, we have free will. Because even when we know when we are supposed to die, we can still impose our own will upon that, as is seen in the end of the movie. However, there is also in this movie the theme of...

God's plan. Yes. The Drake song. God's plan. The Drake song, which of course, which you were transcendent in. Yes. Yes. What's your favorite? Anna Faris tells me you smell like flowers. No. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. But no, it's a thing in this movie where like it says, oh, you violated the EULA by not doing the thing that would have led to your death. How do you know if you're like, okay, well, I just don't feel like getting in this car with a drunk driver because it's obvious I'll get killed by this. Well, the whole thing is if you change based on.

information you got from the app. Yeah, I guess that's true. Because if you hadn't gotten the app, you would have been like, oh, I guess I'll just have my surgery. How shitty is it if you're like, oh, you have 30 years to live, and you're like, you know what? I feel like I'll give up red meat today. All right, end user license agreement violated. I mean, at that point, you just got 30 years to get haunted by a weird ghost. I know, that would suck. Well, no, because now you're going to live longer. So instead, you get 30 years of haunting by a scary ghost. Yeah. At a certain point, you'd think you'd be like, you know what? I've gotten completely used to this, and I'm just going to say, what's up, ghost? Yeah, he's going to show up and be like, oh, I've got weird teeth, and I'm your aunt or something that died. You'd be like, sup? Hey.

Cool. All right. You know, I'm going to be watching. Hey, I'm going to watch Great British Bake Off. You in? You want to sit down? I got peppermint ice cream. It's in season right now. Oh, shit. Move over. Oh, God damn it. Yes. I mean, otherwise, this is some bullshit. They don't really address it because the only people they focus on the film are people who have like two days to live. Well, yeah, because everyone else sees it and they're like, oh, it says I've got 48 years to live. All right, whatever. And immediately forget about the app because it doesn't matter because literally the only thing the app is is a countdown clock. Yeah, it doesn't do anything else. But if you're like, oh, it gave me 27 years to live. Hey, you want some cheesecake? No.

Oh, you will die. You were going to get diabetes from that cheesecake. That one. That one right there. That was the piece. That was what was going to do it.

It's like, oh, well, I guess now I got to be haunted for however long it takes for diabetes to not kill me. Well, it would only happen if you were changing your actions based on the app itself. Because it's only based if you change your actions based on the knowledge you can. Which means that the demon that's controlling the app has absolute knowledge of your intentions at all times. I mean, basically. Because what it basically means is at that point, you can never be sure if you're doing things, or neither can he, if you're doing things because of the app or not. I mean, it could literally just be like, all right, well, what's up with you today? Do you want this slice of cheesecake? Oh, no, I had a Taco Bell earlier today, which I was not expecting to do, but there was a weird traffic jam that I was trying to avoid. And so instead I had this, and now I definitely will not get diabetes later.

Yeah, but you weren't going to because all of the stuff that just happened is part of what would have happened anyway. Okay, so what we're saying is this movie exists in a situation where both free will and determinism are ironclad and 100% true. Yes. That's very dumb. Very true. As you were. Okay. Just wanted to have that out there. Anyway, boyfriend sees a bunch of spooky shit and dies. He falls down an abandoned staircase in the abandoned staircase part of the hospital. Oh, it's just the regular staircase. But the demon turns the lights off. Yeah.

Demon turns the lights off and then runs, oh no, and we see the girlfriend. Because the demon can show up as people who have previously died. Yeah, any dead people is fair game for this demon. Which we don't know it's a demon yet in the movie, but it's a demon, whatever. The demon, for the most part in this film, whatever, like you said, I don't fucking care. The demon in this movie is mostly like loud noises and footsteps. Yeah, I mean, if it actually comes to a person, it will straight jump on top of them and be like, ah, demon, let me get you. And indeed it does. And the boyfriend falls and goes, you know, anytime you see those spiraling staircases up in any building where it's got that hole down the middle of it, and it just goes, ah, thud.

At the exact moment when he would have otherwise died. At the exact moment when he would have otherwise died. Yep. Can we edit it so I say that coming in from the break instead of you? That'd be great. I think I did a cleaner read. Oh, I think my read's pretty clean. So fresh. Sorry about the break, folks. My daughter decided to knock on the door and visit us. I thought it might be the haunted demon's ghost. It might be the haunted demon. It might be the haunted demon who died and now is a ghost. It might be the curse of the mummy's legend.

So, yeah, this guy dies at the exact moment when they said he was going to, and then Quinn finds out that he died when his timer was going to go off, and then he dodged his surgery. Yeah, so that means she's like, oh, shit, like, I didn't believe it before, but now I'm kind of believing that the app is true. So she calls her dad and is like, yeah, it turns out I gotta work, can't make it, not gonna go there, because when she looks at the app, the, like, two days she has until she dies are going to be when they would have been putting flowers on the grave. So she's like, uh, no, can't do it. And then, of course, she gets the you broke the user agreement scream. Right. Which, you know, feels a little cheaty, because, I mean,

If you get that information three days before you're going to die, that's become a relevant part of your life now. If you react to it, it's like that's just normal business. No, the whole point of the thing is you can't react to the app. Yeah. What a weird app. Give it a console. Yeah, golly, what a weird app. I'm just saying. That sends a demon to murder you. I feel like I would not rate it at 3.6 stars, John, is what I'm trying to say here. I'm pretty sure I would rate it at five stars because it accurately tells when you're going to die. It does what it says on the tin. Five stars. Also, it appears to be free.

That said, I can't give it five stars because the notifications are so annoying. Well, only if you're going to die. And then you don't have to worry about it for very long. Now I'm curious to see if I turn off push notifications if I don't die. Oh, you can. In the same way that she tries to delete the app from her phone and cannot, you'd be like, no push notifications and be like, no. Then I'd just be like, all right, I'm going to take the speakers out of this thing. I'll set my phone on vibrate. It's just making Solomon Grundy with his mouth sound shut noise. You take the speakers out and then it still does it anyway because spookums. Oh, no, not spookums.

Not in our most traditional boogan of nights. At what point does the doctor try to rape her? Basically around this time. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure we got to that, because it feels like it could easily be excised from the movie and no one would notice. Well, the only reason it's here is for the end of the movie, because we need someone that she can feel okay trying to kill. Right. But the doctor, like, they go into a room with a coma patient, and they're talking about stuff, and he's being real creepy, like, you know, everyone always says you're so good at your job. You're my number one guy.

Anyway, he starts putting his hands all over her and tries to kiss her and stuff. And she's like, ah, no, I'm not into this. And he tries to bully her into it a little bit where he's like, I can make or break your career and everyone else thinks you're super cool and whatever. And she's like, no, I'm not going to do this. And she runs out and tries to talk to like the head nurse. And, you know, pervert doctor's like, head nurse, please come to me. Now, head nurse.

That is the end of her efforts to tell anyone. She doesn't try the next nurse over or something. She's too busy dealing with the fact that she's got two days to live. Yeah, because at that point, she's like looking up at one of those make sure people aren't stealing or see around the corner mirrors. And it's like, oh, there's a Grim Reaper behind me. Oh, no, a spookus. And turns around and no spookus, but looks in the mirror and spookus. And he does a thing in that shot where he goes accelerating forward a thousand miles an hour and cracks the mirror. Yeah, I think that actually happened to the boyfriend and not her. But sure, whatever. It happened to someone. Yeah. Yeah.

At this point, she's like, all right, well, now I'm super freaked out. She goes home and has a ridiculous thing where some horrible demon thing floats around, and she's freaking out. So she's like, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I can't delete the app, so I'm just going to get a new phone. And she destroys her phone. She's like, fuck it, I'm going to go get a new phone. And indeed, she does. And we get two characters that matter introduced here. Yeah, one of them played by an actor I recognize but cannot name.

Hmm. I mean, he looks a lot like H. John Benjamin. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought he was H. John Benjamin, but he's got a similar energy. Yeah, he looks very much like him and has the same sort of energy. But he runs Doc's Wireless, and he's sort of a skeevy cell phone guy. On the other hand, he is one of those people who sticks it to folks who think the customer's always right. Yeah, fuck you. Because there's some lady in there in line before, our hero, who's complaining that her phone doesn't do exactly what she wants or something, and he's like, just get out of here. Get the hell out of my store. I want to see the manager. And he does the turnaround comeback. Hi, I'm the manager. How can I help you?

Well, you just turned around. I did. Yeah, please leave. I'm not going to help you. So she gets a new phone in a process that takes one one millionth of the time that a normal new phone registration would take. Oh, you're not kidding. I mean, I assume she's buying a burner or something because normally when you go in to get a new phone, they're like...

Oh my god. Oh, they gotta do a credit check, they gotta actually, and she wants to keep her old number, or no, she's getting a new number, so they'd have to generate a number for her, get all of her information. Here, grab a seat at this belly bar. Let me ask you a thousand invasive questions. Yeah, no. I, at one time, sold the cell phones to people, and it takes a good fucking, like, 20 minutes to actually get someone done, and this is done in, like, 20 seconds. Yeah, well, he gets her a new phone, there's two people in line behind her, and she mentioned, as she's like, thank you, so this is a new phone, there's absolutely nothing on it for my old phone? He's like, yeah. And so she looks, and as she's looking at the countdown app, installs itself on the phone. Yeah. And she's like, it's this app again, can you get rid of this app? And he's like, what? No

Just delete it. And she's like, I can't. Whatever. What, you're being cyber bullied? That's crazy. Just close your eyes.

So she tries to go out and get in her car, and she's got that, like, backwards-facing camera thing, and ooh, Spookums shows up in the backwards camera, and then grabs her face with the Spookum hands. Yep, the Spookus shows up and is standing there spookously in her rearview camera thingy, and then she backs up into some guy who yells at her. And this is one of my least favorite things, because he gets out, he's like, what the fuck did you, you just backed into my fucking car! And then the hero dude of the movie comes out, and he's like, hey, I'll kick your ass if you continue this line of questioning. And I'm like, no, perfectly reasonable. She just smashed into his car. He has a nice car, and she...

for no reason, slammed into the side of it, the least you're going to do is be like, okay, my dude, how about insurance information? Exactly. Like, sure, the dude's kind of mad. He's like, what did you do? But he doesn't go like, I'm going to hit you or anything. He's just like, hey, you just hit my car. What the hell? And then this dude comes running out and he's like, if you keep talking to her, I'll beat the fuck out of you. And you're like, dude, I just found out I only have like a day and a half to live and I'm looking to take it out on a white guy. And I'm like, thank you. Thank you, movie, for making the black guy be like that. Yeah, this is kind of a heavy escalation. This is a Clint Howard's heavy escalation.

It did not do a good, because this dude is the new main character that just popped up and threatened to beat a random innocent bystander's ass. Yeah, this is our love interest, other protagonist, essentially. Yeah, it's not an endearing way to meet him. I think they missed a couple steps, basically. If the guy got out of the car and was like, you hit my car, I'm gonna beat you to death with a tire iron, or something. But instead he's just like, hey! And then the threats start. Yeah. But the guy takes off after being threatened with bodily harm, and it turns out this guy also has the countdown app, and is equally as freaked out as she is. So they're like, ooh, we gotta go talk to this doc guy and see if he can...

do something or hack the app. Oh, right, yeah. He's like, yeah, come back later. Yeah. He wants them to come back later. They go talk to another dude who recommends a priest. They talk to a librarian or something. The librarian's like, go talk to a priest. Well, no, they talk to a priest who says, go talk to a different priest. Oh, right. They talk to a priest and the priest sends them to a different priest. Thank you. The priest from the hospital. Yeah, right. Who's like, yeah, I don't believe in demons. I don't believe in any of this bullshit. However, I know an idiot priest who is definitely into that. Sorry, I forgot. We saw this movie a few days ago and I have... I know. That's why I'll go ahead and lead. It's fine. Okay. So what happens next?

When she goes home after getting the new phone and it's all crushed and whatnot, her little sister is there and goes, oh, hey, sis, you're all fucked up and whatever. Hey, what did you do to your phone? And why is there currently a countdown app going on it? And that is what provokes her sister to download the app. And when you know it, her sister's app indicates that she's going to die three minutes before she does. Yeah. Which suggests that her having chosen not to go on the family trip that will definitely kill her sister and her has not affected her sister's decision to go on the trip.

Which is interesting, because now I wonder if you can violate someone else's end-user license agreement. I mean... If her response was, don't go with dad to put the flowers on mom's grave. I don't know. Yeah. It's an interesting question that never comes up because we don't really get an answer for it because of the sister's countdown. Normally it would have been like, oh, they get in a car accident. The sister dies three minutes before she does, but they both die in the car accident. Yeah. Presumably she bleeds out a little longer or whatever. So with this, though, when she finally downloads it, it's after the Quinn has already decided, fuck it, we're not doing that. And in doing so, her dad was like, oh, that's fine. I'll go do some work upstate for a bit and then we'll do it a couple days later. Right. So the sister's trip has already been canceled. Yeah. But she still has the same death time, which means she did.

really violate anything, but she's still going to die, which I think means you can violate someone else's user agreement? Yeah, it's an interesting question that doesn't really get addressed. I mean, ultimately, that's what the rest of the movie is, because they meet this other priest guy, like some random priest in a basement, who's like, well, here's the thing. This is definitely symbology from an ancient Catholic demon. You're like, oh, man, I didn't want this to be a movie about an ancient Catholic demon. Demons are boring. Well, I mean, what else was it going to be? It was going to be ghosts or demons? I was hoping for an evil tech billionaire. Yeah, that's right. An evil tech billionaire who employs ghosts and demons. Yes. Well, he invented ghosts and demons that are cyber ghosts. He invented ghosts and demons. He invented digi-demons and cyber ghosts.

Oh no, DigiDemons. Digital Demons. DigiDemons are the champions. Thank you. Okay, great. I'm glad we could get there. People keep telling me it's better than Pokemon, by the way. And they're wrong. I don't understand. I think the thing that pushes me off from ever even checking out Digimon is the naming convention. Yeah, that everything is something Mon. It's just whatever it is, and then Mon. It's just, I can't, it's like, oh my god, Rymon evolved, Digivolved into Apocalypse Mon. You're like, I don't fucking. Who gives a shit? Pokemon was bad enough.

So they go meet with the priest who's like, oh, I'll try and find out what the fuck is going on. But, you know, I 1000% believe in demons and demonology and some nonsense. This is great, by the way, because this is a proof of demons for me. I love it. Yeah. But he's like, so basically, eventually here. Well, first we have to go to the wireless store where the guy who runs it does indeed hack the system. Yep. And he's a Gibson style hacker, man. Turns out the fucking app takes up like.

20 gigs? 60. It's a 60 gig app. And the reason it's 60 gigs is because it has everyone who's installed the app. Everyone's timer? Yeah.

So he goes in and is like, okay, here, I can just change some numbers around, and now I'm going to live an extra 80 years. And they're like, oh, can you change our numbers? Sure, here you go. You're going to live an extra 50, and you're going to live an extra 45. I don't know why I did different numbers for everyone, but I did, so whatever. What they really should have done is set some random other schlubs timer to zero. See if that works. Just find someone you hate and go, make his timer at one second. Yeah, let's see what happens. Does the demon hurry over there and beat him to death? I was really hoping to torment him a little. Damn it. But no, they...

Figured, oh, well, that worked. All we needed to do was change something in the code, and now we're fine. Or just add another line item that's like, the demon who's doing this. Three minutes. Rules is rules. At that point, they go home, and she takes love interest home with her, and that's when we find out, oh, no, it isn't done. The countdown goes right back to where it was, and then a little evil boy jumps on the dude and is like, blah. Right, yeah, there's a creepy boy because this guy's brother died or something. Yeah, his little brother died when they were both kids. When they were both kids, his brother was in the hospital with some sort of wasting disease and was getting a whole bunch of presents, and he was like,

12 or something, and he got jealous of the presents and stole one of his dying brother's presents. Yeah, he stole a little robo dinosaur that he wanted that his brother got, and then his brother died, and he never gave it to him. So he feels ridiculously guilty and like an asshole because of that. Yeah. Because that's the theme here is everyone who has a countdown that is going to happen soon, outside of our first victim, is just, what is this? Oh, I have guilt about something. Yeah, I have a death guilt that scares me. Yeah.

There's something here that is freaking me out about death. Which makes me wonder if that's part of the app. Like, oh, I sensed guilt in you. You're definitely going to die in a few days. That was definitely how it was going to happen. It was your fate. Well, the other thing is, it might just be a thing where the demon's like, oh, I can see some possible outcomes. And I'm going to say, if you chose this path, you would die now. And then it's not determinism. It's just one of the many things that your free will could do. But he fucks with you if you do anything else. Right. Which, you know, he's a demon, so fine. He's just cheating. But as it turns out, because eventually we have to go back to the priest again. But first she gets fired.

Oh, yeah. She gets fired because it turns out that the doctor managed to accuse her of sexual harassment first. Yeah, she's like, oh, no, we got to talk to you in HR. And she goes there and sees the head nurse and the doctor who harassed her. And then the doctor's like, I'm really sorry about everything. I hope we can.

put this behind us and like move on. She's like, good, thank you. I'm glad that you did this. And then it turns out that no, he didn't come clean. He accused her. And they're like, why didn't you come to us? And she's like, remember when I did? And he called you away and made it really insistent. That was when that was happening. Yeah. Remember that very moment when I was clearly freaked out and trying to tell you something and that guy told you not to talk to me? Hmm. I wonder what that was. And then the nurse has to be like, well, who are we supposed to believe? A nurse like you or the respected word of an older adult authority figure doctor? Huh? Who are we going to believe? And you or this clearly rapey doctor with a history of doing this.

But the movie doesn't have time to be about that. So she just goes, I don't fucking care. Just walks out. Fuck you guys. Yeah. And so they go back to the.

the priest, now with the little sister in tow. Yeah, because she also was about to die. And he's like, okay, so I think I have it figured out. It's a demon named Osun. And Osun... Oh, shit, son! Osun is the god of, like, when you're gonna die or whatever. Who fucking cares? He's a demon of betrayal or something. Yeah, the whole thing is he's like, oh, there's an ancient story where King is dying. Oh my god, I forgot about that! Yeah, no, there's a prince who's like, oh, but I'm supposed to lead an army into battle and I'm afraid I might die. So he goes to see...

an old gypsy woman. And boy, does this movie want to say that a lot. Yep. Which, please don't. It's a slur for anyone who didn't know. I know in America, a lot of people don't realize that. It is. It is. But what happens is she hands him a banner that has a countdown that is identical to the digital readout of the app. Yeah, just a scroll that when you pull it down, it's like zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, two, zero, five. You're like, what? What's this last one? Those are seconds. We don't have those. I don't understand any of what you're trying to tell me here. Did you know that we don't have digital clocks because it's like 1,400? None of this makes sense to me.

This is so dumb. But yeah, the prince finds out that he would die during the battle. So he stays home, his little brother gets sent down and said, the little brother is fine, leads the battle to victory, and then he gets tormented by a demon and killed. I was really expecting when he was like, there was once a great prince who was curious as to the outcome of a battle that was upcoming. I could have sworn it was going to be an oracle at Delphi situation. Like the moment I hit that, it was like, oh yeah, a great battle will be fought and victory will be achieved and you'll return home triumphant or whatever. And then he goes and fights and turns out he dies.

But he does win the battle. It's just that he also dies. Ha ha, Oracle of Delphi. Yeah, but that's not what this movie is about. It's about counting down to death. I know, but that's when I first heard it. Oh, an ancient prince sought out an old wise woman. I was like, oh, okay, they're gonna do an Oracle of Delphi thing. But no, instead it's a Catholic thing because here comes Demon O-Son. And the moment they name him, he stops looking like a random faceless figure in a hood and more just like Christopher Lee as extra bloody Saruman.

I mean, I like the look of the demon. He looks neat. I'm going to say that. I think it's a cool look for a demon. It's fine. I just don't think this movie needs a demon. Why? Because it could be dying through other ways. What other ways? The Rube Goldberg thing is so much more fun. Or the cell phone gets you or something. I don't know. The cell phone gets you. The cell phone just grows old. A little knife pops out. I'm going to get you. Would you like to take a moment to register me? No. That'll kill you. It's a cell phone. With a gun. Installing blow-up app.

So the priest is like, okay, here's the deal. The way we can stop this app is by the fact that... Like, the devil is the lord of lies, and if we can prove him a liar on the time of death, then it should break this curse. Yeah, if you can make Osun a liar by either dying before your number comes up, or forcing someone to live past their number. Yeah, if you make it so that whatever number is shown on anybody's app doesn't actually happen the way it says, then it'll break the curse for everyone. Great, well this is a great opportunity to run back to that hacker guy and be like, set someone's timer to zero and see what happens. No, instead he's like, look, I've got an ancient Christian symbology thing where I can paint a star of David and a few Hebrew symbols on the ground, and as long as you stay inside this circle...

Like, Osun can't get you in here. And they have to make it out of salt. They're like, oh, could you just blow it away? Like, oh, we'll mix it with paint and then we'll paint the salt around. I'm like, that's actually a very interesting, good idea. It's a clever idea, but it's also pulled from how people cast those kind of spells all the time. The funny thing for me was the part where they were judging the quality of the salt. I was like, man, you don't have time for this movie. This movie is already about sexual harassment and determinism and cell phones and guilt over the deaths of close relatives. You don't have time for it to be about whether rock salt is good enough for demon circles.

So they make the symbol, and Matt is his name, is the main love interest on the lead, and his time is going to come up first out of the three of them. So they get into the circle, they all hang out there, and at that point, Osun actually shows up, and he can't... cross the line like it actually does work like a little bit of his robe hits it and it just disintegrates yeah and so he's standing around the outside kind of hissing and whispering and walking around the circle while spookuses happen all around him but then it turns out that while he cannot physically reach into the circle mess with people he can still mess with people in the circle all he wants he just has to do it via visions and brain control yeah so he makes the alarm on the phone of matt go off ridiculously loud to the point where it is painful for everyone else but matt can't hear it instead matt sees the little robot dinosaur walk over to him and his dead little brother and at this point matt is like Oh, well, it's time for me to apologize to what's clearly a demon pretending to be my little brother and also leave the circle. Well, basically, what we've proven here is that you can build a circle to protect you from demons punching you. But anything else the demon could do at all is fair play and fine. Well, he can't kill you while you're in there. He has to get you out. And so he draws Matt slightly out of the circle, grabs him and takes him. Their mistake was leaving anyone any kind of functionality while they were in the circle. Oh, no, they should have handcuffed themselves to a pipe in the middle of the circle. So they might not have realized, oh, he can still fuck with us while we're in the circle. Yeah. So whatever. He takes the guy, he goes upstairs, and then...

He's like, oh, it's fine. He let me go. And then he gets hit by a car and dies exactly when his countdown was. But they've established that the circle works. Yeah. The two of them see this happen and then are freaked out and run away and are like, oh, we've got to figure out what to do. I'm like, what you do is go the fuck back downstairs, hog tie your little sister, who is the next person in the countdown, make it so she can't leave. Put her in the circle. Yep.

But no, they're like, oh, we have a perfectly actual reasonable solution that we know works. Yeah. But instead, I'm going to try and kill rapey doctor because it said he had 56 years to live. So if I kill him before that, then it'll be broken. So she does a whole thing where, okay, she's already been screaming at this guy for being like a rapist and so on. But then her plan is I'll seduce him now. Yeah. And it takes him to the creepy hospital wing. Yeah. The haunted hospital renovation wing. The Vincent Price wing. And assaults him with like a crowbar and a bunch of other shit. Her murder plans are pretty lame.

Maybe she didn't just go get a gun. I think her first plan was to inject him with something, and that just ends immediately. He knocks it out of her hand or whatever. But yeah, she walks into a room where he's working, and she's like, hey, I just wanted to thank you. I was way out of line. If there's a place we could go and talk. And he's like, no, this is stupid. Why would I believe? No, I clearly understand that this is some bullshit. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely going to go with you, of course. Because that way I can yell at you in another room. No, she's just like, all right, you got me. But what I do want is my fucking job back. So if I blow you, will you give me my job back? And he's like, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah.

That's way more reasonable to me in my mind. Right. Well, we established at this point that the demon really doesn't like being proved a liar, because if you're about to kill his guy who's got 56 years left to live, he just telekineses him out of the way. Yeah. So he, like, is about to hit him with a crowbar in his head, and he gets just invisibly pulled into another room, and you're like, oh, so the demon doesn't just get to fuck with people who are about to die or who broke the user agreement, now he's got carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wants. Right. It's a real problem for this movie that the rules are established, and then... And followed right up to that point. Uh-huh. Well, yeah, that and the circle, I would say, where it's like, this demon can't come into the circle, but all of his powers can.

So, anyway, yeah, now the demon is just straight up playing keep away with his mean, rapey doctor, who is also, for whatever reason, is not scared or spooked out by the whole... No, he gets pulled into another room by a weird telekinetic force. Which is roaring, by the way, when it happens. It goes, and pulls him into another room. And his response when he gets into the other room is, oh, I know, I'll look for weapons. Yeah, oh, I gotta defend myself against that crazy bitch. Yeah, like, he's just completely... Oh, cool, demon's on my side. Nice. Neat. I always knew that would happen. Yeah.

He's basically testing the whole you're invincible until that number on your sheet thing that I was talking about earlier in the show. He's like, he's like, fuck it. I guess I'm going to jump out the window. I can't die. Except he doesn't. He doesn't think anything about the countdown timer. He's just, he's only mad at the girl. Yeah. Only mad at Zoe. Gwyn. Gwyn. He's Gwyn. He's mad at Zoe Gwyn. You put it in my head. I know I did. Yeah. So yeah, he tries to find some weapons along the line. The little sister shows up as well because she realizes what her big sister is trying to do. So she's going to try and stop that. And eventually.

Well, we have a thing that there's a setup really early in the movie. There's a person who ODs on drugs and they shoot her up with a magic drug that makes it so you don't OD. Yeah, which exists. It does exist, yeah. But in this case, it's used as a significantly more magic drug. Yes. Because normally it works if you're about to die. In this case, it works after you've died. Yes. So...

There's a bunch of shit running around in the Vincent Price wing of the hospital, and eventually, Rapey Doctor finds the little sister, and is like, ah, leave me the fuck alone, bro, I'm gonna do whatever, unless you do a thing. And then the little sister, like, knocks him away, and she realizes, oh, I can't, like, kill this guy, I don't have enough time, nothing's gonna work. So she injects herself to kill herself. Yeah, she rummages around and finds a needle, and then shows up to threaten everybody with a needle, like, she's got a needle pointed at her arm, and she's like, I'll do it, I'll do it! And the demon's like, roar, whatever. I've so far been able to be...

telekinetically powerful in any way I want to, but I cannot fling a needle away from you for some reason. Yeah. So, eventually, this whole thing, they just keep going back and forth and back and forth, and of course, there's a long, quiet pause where they talk about their mother's death. Well, yeah, the demon turns into the mom. Yeah. Before this, there was a scene where the two of them were like, oh, mom went out to find me because I snuck out of the house, so it's my fault she was out and died. And then the little sister's like, no, she asked me where you were, and I knew where you were, but I didn't tell her, so the fact that she didn't go get you and was wandering around the mall where she died is my fault, so they both have death guilt. Yeah, but it turns out the mom was just a drunk, terrible driver.

The movie doesn't say as much. I mean, the movie doesn't say anything like that, but Jeff has decided. I've read the expanded universe fiction that comes along, the countdown books, and it notes that the mom was just a suicidal idiot. So neither of them was to blame, really. No one was. Yeah, no one. Except for the demon. The demon is to blame. The demon killed her. With a gun. Anyway, she kills herself with poison. And it stops the demon. He...

like explodes into ashes and we can see the countdown on the little sister has stopped at like two seconds and uh then little sister is mourning and then like grabs her and there's a little message on her arm that says like inject here yeah and she's got a vial of the magic wake me up from being dead drug me up wake me up inside this drug uh with uh that was instinctive yeah there you go that hurt yeah it happens yeah it's in you so uh so anyway john she rolls her over and there's there's a spot and there's a vial and she's like okay well i guess i'll shoot you up with this and then i'll say wake up You have to wake up. Wake up. And then she wakes up. Yep.

Good. Now, everything's great and nothing is bad. They have a reconciled family now who are putting flowers on the grave of the mother. And, you know, the dad is like, oh, I love you, too. And you're all great. And everything's wonderful. And then they look at their phone and there's a scream happens. And it says, like, countdown 2.0 update installed. I was like, that is a cheap ass ending. That's an ending you write when you can't think of anything else. Because all she has to do now is be like, oh, a second one. All right. I do not accept the user license agreement. Yeah. No. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

You're not going to be... It's like she's going to be like, ah, the demon. The game begins again. Aha, it is a foot. Come, dear sister.

But the actual like mid credit ending is the doc guy from the cell phone area was he's on a shitty date. He had essentially a Tinder date and he's being a big weird asshole. Yeah, he's the worst Tinder date. Yeah. And then lights all go out and he screams and he dies. Although it said he had like what 30 or some years. Yeah. I mean, when he first got it, it wasn't like, oh, I'm also going to die in like 12 hours or whatever. Yeah. He was just like, oh, I've got 30 something years and they changed it to 80. And when he's on the date, the thing goes off and then it like spins the entire countdown down to like a minute. Yeah. Which.

means that the demon can just do whatever the fuck it wants. Which is why the ending, both for the actual ending and the mid-credit ending, are like, oh, you just decided, fuck it, there are no rules. Right. Every time this demon does anything, it makes me less interested in the demon or the movie. Because every time he does, he's like, you know my rules I set up? I don't care about the rules. I'm like, I do. The movie's a complicated machinery, and I want to see it work. The whole point of any horror movie that has rules isn't, oh, how does the thing break them? It's, how can I succeed within the established parameters? Yes. Because that's what's fun to see, is people like,

finding ways to twist the rules to their advantage rather than oh no just you try and twist a rule and it was very intelligent but the demon doesn't care and it just breaks the rules anyway who gives a shit yeah and that that just tears these kinds of movies down for me a lot of the horror movies do that like i like the ones that don't like uh i've always kind of said that the others i particularly enjoy is a sort of creepy atmosphere not quite horror movie because it sets up its twist and then never violates the twist yeah it's uh these characters are you've seen the others it was like 15 20 years ago oh yeah well it's just turning of the screw as a as a movie yeah yeah it's just you guys are actually the ghosts and it's so on point with maintaining the rules of it yeah This movie, on the other hand, instead, every time the demon does anything, it's violating the rules established in the movie. Yeah. So that's the end of the movie. And let's go ahead and give our bests and worsts for this film. Jeff, what is the best thing in this film for you? A couple of the songs I played towards the beginning were real bangers. Just real bops. I went home and downloaded a few of the songs from the beginning of this movie right away because I was like, shit, this is a good soundtrack. I'm digging this.

I mean, that's kind of a bullshit real answer, but I did want to say that this movie's got a surprisingly good... I mean, that's fine. If you want to say the soundtrack is your favorite thing, you can do that. I mean, ultimately, almost everything else I really enjoy about this movie is cheated in some way, but no, my actual favorite thing in this movie is the performance of the dude who runs the cell phone store. Oh, yeah. I like his sort of abrasive asshole personality and the fact that they actually do circle back around to him and give him a horrible date. I mean, the whole cheating and killing him thing sucks, but he's a great bad character. No, for a side character that is sort of important, but not like a protagonist...

They do a very good job of quickly establishing who he is, what he does, like his parameters for how he wants to do things. Like he becomes a fully fleshed out, believable character immediately. So I think they did do a good job with that character. Yes. What was your favorite thing in this film? Honestly, I just really like the way the demon looks. I think Osun looks rad. Yeah, no, he's fine. He's got a cool, weird, like floaty, yellow eye, bloody, sharp tooth nonsense. I couldn't tell if he had a veil or a bloody beard. And I thought that was a nicely done thing where I couldn't tell which one of those it was. Yeah, yeah. He just sort of...

Even when he shows himself, looks obscured, it's neat. It's an okay design. It's a neat monster design. I like neat monster designs. I like the design. I don't like the character. The character's just a cheater of his own stupid rules. Well, that's not any problem of the monster itself. That's just the writing. That's fair. So, Jeff, your least favorite thing. I'm going to say the introduction of the male love interest. The part where he's just like, hey, bro, I'm willing to escalate this fight situation dramatically, and I'm the good guy. That took me right out of the film when I was like, whoa, hey, she did just hit his car really hard with him in it. That was a very dangerous thing that just happened. You can't just scare this guy away. Yeah, that was...

Not the best. That's a crime you just did. You both just did crimes. You've done crimes now. Yeah. We'll die for them. Yeah. So, what about you?

Uh, honestly, the thing that made me react the angriest in the movie is them just not going back to that fucking salt circle. Oh, I know. That's really pissed. It was so abandoned. They were like, well, this thing that clearly works can't work. Yeah. I'm like, oh, what you saw was this guy decided to get out of the ring, even though it was working. And you not even like abandoned that circle, but abandoned the idea entirely. And the priest never shows up again. Like he just disappears after that death. Yeah. And they're all like, oh, no, the scariest thing that happened in that sequence was a really loud noise was happening. It's fine. Just.

Throw your cell phone somewhere else. Throw it with the demon. That'd be fun. Hey, donk. Donk. Hey, Dick, what you gonna do? Boink. So, yeah, that was... That really fucking annoyed me. That's why I brought this bag of peanut M&Ms. What's up, demon? And he's like, ooh, peanut M&Ms. I'm in a circle and you're not. Dude, peanut M&Ms, though. This is great. Never mind. You got an extension. I love peanut M&Ms. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and give the film each of us a rating zero to five. Gives the rating a total out of ten. Very average horror movie. Two and a half, John. I think I'll give it a three. It was fun. Like, it was...

Definitely losing points for not following rules. And I fucking, like you, I really hate when a movie does that. I know, why go to the trouble of establishing a complex and ironclad set of rules? Oh yeah, you may as well just not say there are rules. Just say like, oh, a demon will kill you at this time. There are plenty of movies that don't set rules and have crazy demons doing crazy things, and I'm not bothered by it because you didn't set a bunch of elaborate rules in the beginning. Yeah, when you watched like The Exorcist, you're like, oh, this is bullshit. They said that demons couldn't shoot pea soup or whatever. Yeah, but these movies were like, okay, so here's the rules. If you don't go outside between midnight and 3 a.m., you're fine.

I changed the rules. It's 2 a.m. Oh, no, I changed the rules, and now with the windows open, it counts as being outside. Don't change the rules if you're going to go through all the trouble of establishing them, because it's not as interesting as you think it is. It just means that the stakes don't matter now. Yeah. So five and a half out of ten, slightly better than average. Expected, I guess. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I thought I was going to come out of this with it being like a two. I thought it was going to be garbage town. But no, it was perfectly fine. You get some decent scares. You get a little bit of tension with several of the shots as far as like...

the demon stalking people. Yeah, there's a lot of cool shots of the demon in the background of things and stuff. Yeah, sure. It's not terrible, but it's not exactly going to be a classic. No. So thank you so much for joining us. I do already have the poll up for November. I am not going to lie to you and tell you we won't do one. We definitely are. You can go see that. There is a lot of nonsense coming out next month. I did not know that. I should probably look at the poll myself because I have no idea what's happening. Everything from like Arctic Dogs.

to Frozen 2. Ooh, okay, so a lot of cold stuff is what I'm hearing. Yeah, we got a lot of cold stuff. We've got... What Arctic Dogs movie is it? Oh, it's a cartoon about, like, dogs. It looks atrocious. Oh, no. It's like if someone got told what Balto was and then made a garbage movie about it. Oh, an off-brand CGI movie about dogs. Yep.

Is it made by Illamation? I don't even know. All I saw was an image of the poster and went, ooh, that's going on the list. At least we somehow dodged that flurry of CGI movies. So many goddamn Yeti movies. There were like three of them. It was like a Deep Impact Armageddon sequence with an extra one. Oh, yeah. We had the Abominable and the Littlest Giant or Yeti or something. And then the one about the Aardman films one that was more like fake, the CGI as Claymation. Yeah. So there were three. There were three. Plus the one that featured Zendaya as Michi. Michi.

So we will be back in a couple of weeks. Of course, if you like what you hear, you can go ahead and support us. Patreon.com slash System Mastery. Any level helps us out. And it means that if we get to certain levels and don't have to worry so much about stuff that's going on because we're poor, then maybe we'll even put some bonus content out for this. Who knows? But we got to have extra hours in the day at this point. You know it. And we've got plenty of other stuff. If you go to System Mastery Podcast dot com, you can find all of our many podcasts there, including all of the written reviews I did for Horrortoberfest this year and the past like seven years. Yeah, he's been working real hard on that. I think there's only...

one year that isn't on there of the years that I did it. Yeah, we were having some difficulty that year. I forgot what was going on, but it was not a good year. Yeah. So that is everything for... Also, you can buy our book. Buy my book. We did a book. We wrote a book. Yeah, go to SystemMasteryPodcast.com and the link is there. You can buy a book from us. We actually did it. I thought it was going to be like that one episode of Frasier where the brothers lock themselves in a hotel and end up fighting the whole time. Yeah. But no, we wrote the whole book. But no, we walked ourselves in a hotel and just... Which is absurd. I mean, the book that came out of that fuck energy. Let me tell you. Our book, A Dragon Walks Into a Bar, available at Simon & Schuster's website or Amazon or wherever fine books are sold, is thick with fuck sweat.

That's right. Each and every book guaranteed. Thick and uncut. With fuck sweat. With fuck sweat. That's a guarantee I make into you. A dragon box into a bar, which again is a book of role-playing game jokes. Thick with fuck sweat. So go buy it right now. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back in another couple weeks with more Movie Mastery. And until then, you have a good one.