“There’s an app for that.” It’s an Apple-trademarked and meme-worthy phrase that aptly describes the endless options available at our fingertips to download to our permanently tethered smartphones. Need to count calories? Download an app. What about an app that literally does nothing? Yeah, that exists too. Countdown bases its premise around a killer app, one that seems to serve no other purpose than show a countdown to your death. It’s a PG-13 horror movie that tries its hardest to remain contemporary and progressive while cribbing from more popular horror movies of the past.

Elizabeth Lail stars as Quinn Harris, a nurse with a patient terrified that he’s going to die soon because an app, “Countdown,” told him his hours were numbered. When he does indeed die right on time, her curiosity gets the better of her and she downloads the app, too. Of course, it reveals she has only three days to live. The more the clock winds down, the more she’s haunted by a menacing entity. It becomes a race against the clock for Quinn to find a way to save her own life.

For much of the runtime, writer/director Justin Dec, making his feature debut, isn’t interested in anything more complex than the simple premise. You download the app, and you die exactly when it says you will. For many, death is years or decades away. For people like Elizabeth, it’s within hours or days. Your fate is sealed. If you try to thwart fate, well, that’s where the demonic figure steps in. Sounds a lot like Final Destination or The Ring, right? It pretty much is, but without the innovation, tension, or creative death sequences that made those films so memorable. Countdown can’t even be bothered to flesh out its world or stick to its sparsely laid out rules. It’s only in the third act that it tries to make the mythology behind the app more interesting, but it’s not enough.

Because the plot itself is so thin and formulaic, Dec tries to pad it out with subplots meant to flesh out its leading lady. Quinn is estranged from her remaining family members after the death of her mother, which gradually becomes an integral part of the plot. Her career life is just as much in shambles; Dr. Sullivan (Peter Facinelli) might seem like a caring doctor to most, but he uses his position of power to sexually harass Quinn in the sleaziest of ways. It’s a weird stab at social commentary that feels superficial and contrived. Lail tries her hardest to make Quinn a protagonist worth rooting for, but it’s a major uphill battle with such a silly story.

It probably doesn’t help Lail that while the story demands a lot from her in terms of emotional lifting or being in a state of constant fear, she’s surrounded by over the top characters that exist solely for comedic relief. There’s a priest (P.J. Byrne) that gets high and orders from grub hub, along with comedian Tom Segura as a surly cell phone shop owner. Both feel shoehorned into the plot just for the giggles. This, combined with the eye-rolling nature of certain plot points makes Countdown feel hard to pin down tonally.

Countdown does offer up a few decent scare pieces, and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (High Tension, Annabelle: Creation) imbues the film with a style and aesthetic that makes it visually interesting. In other words, there’s a lot of frustrating untapped potential. For the young adult crowd not well versed in genre, there’s probably enough here to entertain and scare. But for the seasoned horror fan, it’s another formulaic horror-lite entry that borrows from more effective films before. But one that wants to be hip to the times.

We’ve seen these jump scares, and we’ve traveled this road many times before. It’s competently made and isn’t the worst way to spend an hour and a half, but it’s also pretty forgettable. Like most horror films, it concludes with the door ajar for a sequel. But really, it’s not worth installing this killer app in the first place.