FALL (2022)

Studio:     Lionsgate
Director:    Scott Mann
Writer:     Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann
Producer:  James Harris, Mark Lane, Scott Mann, David Haring, Christian Mercuri
Stars:     Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Garner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Review Score:

Summary:

Two thrill-seeking friends become stranded atop a 2,000-foot-tall TV tower in the middle of a desert.

Synopsis:     

Review:

Few amusement park attractions can cause me to tense up with anxious panic like Lex Luthor’s Drop of Doom at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Less of a thrill ride intended for fun and more of a means for my mind to imagine gruesome ways to die, Drop of Doom is a traditional drop tower themed around Superman’s nemesis.

Now, I’m not afraid of heights. I’m not necessarily afraid of falling, either. Rather, Drop of Doom brings out a very specific fear of being trapped atop a metal tower at the moment of a spontaneous collapse or catastrophic safety failure.

See, inclement weather often causes Drop of Doom to suspend operations; it’s not uncommon for the ride to be down for an entire day. At less breezy times, you can still look up and see the tall tower swaying scarily in the Santa Clarita winds. So when the car begins its 400-foot ascent to take me to the top, I can’t help but think about those strong desert gusts and wonder, “Is this when the thing finally falls over?” True terror comes when the car pauses at the peak so Lex Luthor can deliver a taunting speech over a speaker. Between the creaking metal, loud winds, and louder blood pounding between my ears, to this day I’ve never heard exactly what Luthor says. In those few seconds that feel like an eternity, I only imagine bolts bursting and steel snapping. Then the car shakes a few times before you feel the floor retract. “Was that a malfunction?” Finally, the car drops and, instead of gleefully screaming from an adrenaline rush, I’m immediately relieved to be heading back to the ground so I can once again ask, “Why do I continue to willingly put myself through that?”

“Fall” captures that nausea with frighteningly precise accuracy. I feel like director Scott Mann and co-writer Jonathan Frank extracted those particular phobias directly from my psyche, then made them into a movie about two thrill-seeking friends who become stranded atop a 2,000-foot-tall TV tower after the old ladder they climbed breaks into a thousand pieces. It’s not the vertigo. It’s the fixtures shaking free from their restraints. It’s rusted rods aching noisily as they struggle to support the women’s weight. It’s high-pitched winds whistling a wicked tune as hair whips around. Call them cheap B-movie thrills if that’s how you see it. But the 15+ minutes between when Becky and Hunter begin their climb and when the ladder collapses are so harrowing, I was practically sweating from Drop of Doom flashbacks while agonizing over every near-miss moment of hinges cracking and poles rattling.

“Fall” puts on a clinic in editing action with second unit cinematography. The filmmakers shot no shortage of footage featuring outstretched hands grasping, clasping, gripping, and slipping. At this early stage in the runtime, of course there’s no way either woman will fall. And yet, the tight pace and precarious positions still morph these minutes into extreme nail-biters with the ways Becky and Hunter dangle, drop, and kind of carelessly hop around this thin tower. Any action could kill them in any given second, and “Fall” packs each scene with the suggestion that something unexpected could happen, even when it probably won’t.

With credits, “Fall” runs over 100 minutes, which is really too long for a straightforward setup with two people in what essentially amounts to a single location. After completing their white-knuckle climb, Becky and Hunter trap viewers in a lull where they accept the initial helplessness of their situation, then sit for nonchalant chitchat. Maybe the movie means to give high blood pressures a breather by pausing to de-escalate from stressful suspense. However, these stretches turn into realizations that some judicious trimming could make “Fall” move at a more consistent clip.

“Fall” also pulls up pails of predictability when it relies on water drawn from a formulaic well, although the film sometimes surprises with clever complications that deliciously deepen the danger. One such scene features the usual “Hey, we’re over here!” of Becky and Hunter fighting to attract a potential rescuer’s attention. They finally do, and the outcome is, hilariously, not what anyone would expect. There’s a similar “help could be on the way” sequence involving a drone that ends in an opportunity to wring your hands like a satisfied cartoon villain for how tragically, yet once again hilariously, Murphy’s Law works against the women. You never actively root against Becky or Hunter surviving, but you do feel devilish delight every time their straits grow impossibly direr.

Plenty of people will find “Fall” implausible. Others might dismiss it as inessential escapist entertainment. It’s a simple affair, put together economically with two casually attractive leads and a Jeffrey Dean Morgan cameo for some “I know that guy!” recognition and a dash of emotional stakes so the story doesn’t seem too shallow. There’s also a goofy twist that’s kind of an “eh, I’m not sure that works” revelation, almost as though “Fall” tries doing too much to stay a step ahead of audience expectations.

But let me tell you, I’m both pleasantly surprised and maybe a little embarrassed to confess that “Fall” had my stomach turned into all kinds of knots. I don’t know the last time a thriller, especially a lower-end one like this, got into my gut by finding the right angles to turn tension to fiery temperatures. My personal experience with foreboding metal towers twisting in desert winds no doubt has quite a bit to do with the effect “Fall” had. But if you can relate too, you’re in for a wild ride that can keep your muscles clenched regardless of how ridiculous things get.

Review Score: 75