As Jamie and Patrick turn the corner of Square HQ with the intruder alarm blaring they are forced to come to a stop. At the end of the hallway Sticks and Stones stand. They flip the switch on some heavy-duty weaponry attached to their backs and immediately flex glistening muscles. “This is where this has always led. To us. We are the rightful champions. We are relegated to the Z-universe no more. Once you die we will be BMT,” they scream in challenge. But Jamie and Patrick aren’t cowed. Not now when their mission is so clear and their twin powers so strong. They fist bump and immediately fly into a choreographed fight dance. Legs flying, abs shimmering in the light, they backflip over Sticks and Stones, who are momentarily stunned by the pure beauty of the movements. Using that hesitation to their advantage Jamie and Patrick use a couple of patented Twin Chops to disable the weapon packs. “Noooooo,” Sticks and Stones scream, “This can’t be happening.” But it is and they stand no chance against the Bad Movie Twins. Using a triple deke maneuver, they fake out Sticks and Stones and render them vulnerable to a final double kick to their groins. Falling to their knees an alarm begins to blare and a countdown begins, “10… 9…” They must have had some kind of self-destruct trigger on their persons in case of just such an ass-whooping. Looking at each other Jamie and Patrick curse and flee the building leaving Sticks and Stone quivering on the floor holding their battered groins. They will never be able to get out before the building explodes and are certain to die… or will they? Bum bum bum! That’s right! We’re finishing up the final BMT Live of the year just in time for the start of the 2019 cycle by watching the newly released horror film Countdown. Excellent. And just in time for Halloween! Let’s go!
Countdown (2019) – BMeTric: 16.1; Notability: 20
(It isn’t worth posting the plot this early, but this is sitting well below 6.0 on IMDb, which is rather below average. Having said that, horror films tend to have fans who are, in general, critical of the genre they love. Which is good. But it isn’t a surprise a bad horror film opens that low. The hardcore fans watching this film are just the people who will be quick to rate it low online. Notability is a new metric which I will write about soon, but it is basically just the number of people involved in the project (from IMDb) who have a wikipedia page. That’s it. For horror 20 I think is not uncommon, but you’ll see all the way up into the 200s for the big releases of the year. I think it is an interesting proxy for basically budget / theatrical release without being subject to the whims of 3rd party data sources. So stay tuned for upcoming analyses related to that.)
RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – “Countdown” pretty much fails on every level that a horror film can—the characters are uninteresting dullards, the story is idiotic, and the scares are nonexistent.
(Absolutely eviscerating review there. Unfortunately horror without scares is usually boring, so I’m not sure I’m going to be super into it, but I like that someone who appreciates horror (clearly) just hated this film. It is promising.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqvWtC2ae3M/
(Genuinely looks terrible. Terrible concept, and even the scares look cheesy and weird. Usually horror film trailers get to be quite well because I find horror films spooky scary, but this just looks dumb … I’m excited.)
Directors – Justin Dec – (BMT: Countdown; Notes: His first feature directing job. Was a second second assistant director on Bart Got a Room, which is a film I’ve heard of.)
Writers – Justin Dec (screenplay) – (BMT: Countdown; Notes: Also his first major writing job. He wrote all of the shorts he directed to some acclaim, and otherwise was a production assistant for years.)
Actors – Elizabeth Lail – (BMT: Countdown; Notes: Somewhat notably was Anna in Once Upon a Time, and starred in You which also stars the guy from Gossip Girl. Was considered for the role of Supergirl.)
Jordan Calloway – (BMT: Countdown; Notes: Was in Riverdale and Black Lightning. When he was young he starred in the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous.)
Talitha Eliana Bateman – (Known For: Robert the Bruce; Annabelle: Creation; Love, Simon; So B. It; BMT: The 5th Wave; Geostorm; Nine Lives; Countdown; Notes: She has eight siblings, of which Leah and Gabriel are both fairly well-established actors. Appeared in Hart of Dixie.)
Budget/Gross – $6,500,000 / Domestic: $18,102,635 (Worldwide: $21,802,635)
(Not this is as of the 6th of November, 2019. Obviously, releasing a horror film is like printing money at this point. People love watching horror films in theaters, and you can make them for nothing. It is incredible.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 24% (13/55)
(Again, as of November 6th, 2019. The consensus appears to be: rote thriller which relies too heavily on jump scares. You’ll feel cheated despite the two excellent lead actors. Reviewer Highlight: Rather than screaming for them to go the other way, you’ll be urging them to accept fate and die instead. – Benjamin Lee, Guardian)
Poster – Killer App (C+)
(I like the font. I like the red to highlight the zeroes of the countdown. But everything else is just a little clean. Looks a little cheap and not artistic enough. But fine.)
Tagline(s) – Death? There’s an app for that. (FFFFF—-)
(Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. This is the worst! The worst tagline of all time! I want to hide from it. It’s scarier than the movie is (probably).)
Keyword – characters-killed-one-by-one;
Top 10: Countdown (2019), Halloween (2007), The Cabin in the Woods (2011), Child’s Play (2019), Scream 2 (1997), Happy Death Day (2017), The Thing (1982), House of 1000 Corpses (2003), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Happy Death Day 2U (2019);
Future BMT: 82.4 Prom Night (2008), 77.8 Shark Night 3D (2011), 69.0 Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), 68.0 The Darkest Hour (2011), 65.0 Seed of Chucky (2004), 60.5 The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), 60.0 Pet Sematary II (1992), 56.5 See No Evil (2006), 54.4 Sorority Row (2009), 46.7 Saw 3D (2010);
BMT: Countdown (2019), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Ghost Ship (2002), Truth or Dare (2018), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Anaconda (1997), Ouija (2014), AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Sabotage (2014)
(This is the new and improved keywords section. Brought to you by: Box Office Mojo eliminated their genres section. I’ll be messing around with the process over the next few weeks, but I’m hoping to focus on keywords which are narrow (100-1000 films), but also illustrative of the films they represent (here, mostly horror films). Notability will be explained more in another post, but basically it is just the number of people involved in the film with a wikipedia page. A major release in the 2010s tends to have around 80-120 notability last time I checked. The data is windowed and weighted, so if the notability is something like 300 it could be because there are two very notable films released on the same weekend, or a lot of films released within a single year. One small bit on this particular keyword: I think you can basically see how horror films have gone from major releases (large notability) to smaller releases (small notability) from 2000-2020.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 26) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tichina Arnold is No. 6 billed in Countdown and No. 11 billed in Wild Hogs, which also stars Tim Allen (No. 1 billed) who is in Jungle 2 Jungle (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 6 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 6 + 11 + 1 + 1 + 6 + 1 = 26. If we were to watch Supernova, The Watcher, Hardball, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 20.
Bad Movie Twins 