Nope. If Jordan Peele hadn’t recently claimed that movie title, it would have been a suitable title for Fall. Because, nope, there’s no way in hell I’d be climbing up that fucking tower.
If you’ve seen the trailer of Fall, then you know the plot. After a mountain-climbing mishap in which her husband falls to his death, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) descends into depression and heavy drinking. Then her pal Shiloh (Virginia Hunter) shows up about a year after the accident with plans of taking her on another adventure—to climb a big ass TV tower.
The film has some serious issues, but let me first say. . .it is unnerving as hell. The visuals of and from the tower gave me that sick, nervous sensation in my gut that you only really get when you’re at the precipice of a very tall roller coaster, one that’s just about to descend at about a million miles an hour.
It’s a suspenseful watch as well. Suspenseful in the way Gerald’s Game and All is Lost are suspenseful, like there’s no possible way this ends well. They can’t get out of it, right? With every attempt the girls make to save themselves, they only serve to dig their graves a little deeper.
But it was difficult for me to look past the film’s flaws at times.
Look, I’m not a mountain climber, so maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. But wouldn’t two seasoned climbers intent on scaling an old rusty tower want to bring some safety glasses along? I’ve had flakes of rust in my eyeballs before, and it ain’t fun. Plus they were climbing on a clear day with the sun shining bright. Sunglasses, perhaps? And gloves? Wouldn’t they want gloves to avoid very important injuries to the hands. And then there is the issue of unnatural strength, especially pertaining to the Shiloh character.
If you can look past that stuff, it’s a fun movie, an edge of your seat thriller. And there’s a nice twist at the end I didn’t see coming. Even if you don’t have a fear of heights, it will give your tummy the willies.
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 4
Special Effects - 7
Nudity/Sexuality - 2
Wow Factor - 6
Acting - 4
Fear Factor - 7
Story/Plot/Originality - 3
Cinematography/Atmosphere - 8
Sound/Music - 5
Fun Factor - 4
Fall receives a score of 50 on the PHEMSA, a pretty damn good rating. I actually wasn’t expecting that. But the intense atmosphere and chilling shots from 2000 feet in the air really give it points in several different areas, even though the film is really more of a thriller than a horror movie. If you want to check it out, you can find it on Amazon.