Fall (2022) - A Tense Ride

Fall (2022) is certainly not a film to watch if you're afraid of heights - or it's perfect, since it's tailor made to your fears. (After all, you know this will itch that scary scratch for you.) It's certainly a good reminder to everyone, scared of heights or not, just how terrifying they truly are.

Fall starts the way all survival horror movies start: Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) loses her husband (Mason Gooding) whilst attempting to climb a rockface, and vows never to climb again. Enter her best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner), who convinces her to do One Last Climb. The climb in question is a 2,000 foot cell tower in the middle of the desert and, inevitably, they become trapped at the top.

The practically of making the film compelling feels as lofty as the tower itself. After all, for the majority of the movie, we're trapped on a tiny platform with our two protagonists.

But the film rises to the occasion. Instead of the sense of claustrophobia that comes from survival movies, such as The Descent (2005), the sweeping sky and beautiful landscapes evoke the opposite: kenophobia. The openness of the setting creates the sense of dreadful isolation that's the true fear of the film: not being able to call for help. It's difficult to imagine anywhere being truly off the grid now; The Fall reminds us how difficult that is.

It helps, of course, that Becky and Hunter are capable and clever. There's little lamenting - they're always coming up with the next idea to get out of their predicament. And, with the precarity of the situation, this keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Both characters are also strong - they have to be, to carry the movie. Apart from the inevitable annoyance of Hunter pushing Becky to go back to climbing, their close bond is conveyed well. You do want them to find a way out of their predicament - they earn it.

The queasiest part of the movie certainly comes from the initial climb. The swooping shots of the cell tower, and the precarious ladder to get to the top are enough to give you vertigo. My personal worst moment was when the girls got their phones out for selfies and videos - my worst nightmare! I wasn't able to stay long at the Empire State Building, or the Eiffel Tower, because of precarious phones over the edge. (Though, at least here, if they did drop their phones, it wouldn't fall on some hapless tourist.)

This, to me, was more uncomfortable than the inevitable onset of the vultures.

Unfortunately, there is a predictability to the movie. There's a very specific moment where you can tell exactly what's happened, and exactly what the filmmakers have got planned for the rest of it. (And the vultures are a huge clue - they only ever go for dead meat, and the idea they circle around animals, waiting for them to die, is a myth.)

This could certainly put a damper on the film, but what happens next certainly pulls it back. The solution to getting down from the tower is not so guessable - at least, not until you realise the plan and think, "No! Certainly not!" It's that ending which pulls Fall back from the edge, and makes it worth the wait.

Overall the movie is well-acted and cleverly shot. It's worth seeing alone, just to see how well it pulls off having a set that's six foot by six foot.