FALL (2022)
Thrill seeker Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) has spent the last year mourning the death of her husband Dan (Mason Gooding) who fell during a climb with she and their friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner). Hunter tries to snap her out of it by challenging her to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot-tall TV tower in the middle of the desert. Becky reluctantly agrees to the climb, planning to spread Dan’s ashes from the tower’s peak. Upon reaching the top, disaster strikes, as the ladder falls leaving them stranded up there without cell service or any protection from the harsh elements. Now, as no one knows where they are and they have no way down, it becomes a precariously perched battle to survive.
Suspense thriller is well directed by Scott Mann from his script with Jonathan Frank. Aside from some cheesy and predictable melodrama between the girls, involving Becky’s husband Dan, and the overall reckless idea the entire movie is based on, it is a tense and entertaining flick, complete with a disturbing twist in the last act. For anyone with a fear of heights it will be 107 minutes of hard road and Mann keeps the tension going by using some dizzying camera work and the extensive height to his advantage…and our discomfort. He also keeps things moving very quickly so we don’t have time to be too critical of just how badly prepared the girls are for this trip—such as these experienced climbers bringing no extra rope on a climb—or that disabling the all-important aviation obstruction lighting at the tower’s top would surely have alerted someone to come fix it. Becky and Hunter are also likable enough to earn our sympathy, even if they are doing something really irresponsible and stupid. Real thrill-seekers surely go better prepared into situations like this…although it is partially based on a real incident. Despite the weak melodrama, and some lapses in logic and simple common sense, it is still an effective and tense thriller with some nice suspense, tension and some vertigo inducing camera shots. Also stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Becky’s dad.
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 