In my day job I was speaking to someone and they mentioned the new to Netflix movie Fall. Now, I'm terrified of heights, in fact I would say that is my biggest fear in the real world, so I felt I needed to see this to see how it would affect me. I had no intention to actually review this, it was more watched for my own enjoyment. But I saw someone term this as 'survival horror', and that actually is a good term for it, joining films such as Open Water and The Shallows, while also falling into the same issues those had.
Becky (Grace Caroline Currey - Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Annabelle: Creation), her husband Dan (Mason Gooding - Scream VI, Scream), and best friend, Hunter (Virginia Gardner - Halloween) are three adrenaline junkies who get their kicks by free climbing mountains and tall structures. After one such expedition leads to Dan's death, Becky falls into a deep depression. Hunter, a popular vlogger, comes up with a plan to fix her friend, she suggests that in order to both get over her fear of climbing, and as a tribute to Dan, they will climb a disused 2,000 foot tall radio tower in order to spread his ashes from the top. Things go to plan all the way to the top, however, when they go to begin the climb down, the rusty and badly maintained ladder falls away, leaving them stranded. With no way to contact the world below, and with no access to food, water, or shelter, the two must work together to try and find a way to survive.
The film may fall into some of the pitfalls that this genre of movie always suffers from, but it at least worked at being really scary for me. In fact, over the decades of watching horrors I can say I have never had to pause a film and take a break from the terror, yet for Fall, there came a moment when I had to do just that, unable to watch until I had gone for a tiny walk around my house to put myself back into the real world for a few minutes. After a silly prologue (why on Earth are these friends free climbing mountains? Hard to feel too bad for them when Dan dies!) it doesn't take too long to get to the tower, where the majority of the one hour forty seven minute movie takes place. The initial climb was terrifying to me, dizzyingly filmed with plenty of insert shots showing various screws coming loose on the infernal contraption, in a way that brought to mind the Final Destination movies. In my mind I was begging for the two to abandon their plan and get the heck back to solid ground. This all comes to a head at the very top where my panic at the vertigo peaked.
I enjoyed the film, but after the initial climb the fear subsided slightly, which wasn't helped by the typical impulse to put all sorts of implausible situations into the film to give some variety. Of course there turns out to be some secret between the two that causes a rift, of course, their every attempt to contact the outside world goes farcically wrong (trying to send a drone with a note tied to it, managing to get the attention of a passer-by who then takes advantage of their situation to steal their car, stuffing a phone into a shoe with the hope the message they have tried to send on it will get signal and send before that hits the ground), and the increasing attacks by vultures came across as funny rather than scary. Fall would have benefited by being a good half an hour shorter, maybe get to the tower itself quicker, and not having as many stupid things happen whilst up there. The plot does eventually get back on track, but some of the ending is glossed over, with some pivotal moments occuring in-between scenes.
The two protagonists were perfectly fine, I've read some complaints about the unrealistic dialogue, but I found it entertaining. The subplot about one of them having a secret was needless, I barely even paid it any attention. The always great Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead, Supernatural) had a small part here, but due to how little he was in the movie he came across as distracting, despite being as great as ever.
I don't think a movie has ever made me sweat as much as I did while watching Fall. The sense of being up high was effective, despite some occasional subpar CG taking away from the believability. This would have been better in a shorter format, but was a movie that I had to watch in one sitting (to be truthful I was so stressed about the character's situation that I had to read the Wikipedia entry to see how the story would be resolved). It may use some tired tropes to pad out the run time, but any film that is about being trapped up high was always going to be something that would get my blood pumping. Fall can currently be streamed on Netflix.
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