Fall

Right. First things first. Understood that you erect a 2000ft television relay tower back in the day, but when that industry moves to satellite delivery, why on Earth would anyone just leave this gradually rusting structure standing - only for it to come crashing down one day when the metal fatigue has won out? Hmmm! Anyway, luckily for us the planner's ineptitude allowed for "Becky" (Grace Caroline Currey) and her friend "Hunter" (Virginia Gardner) to go climb it. It's quite a big deal for the former woman - she had been free-climbing almost one year earlier with her friend and her husband "Dan" (Mason Gooding) when disaster struck and she has spent much of the intervening period married to Jack Daniels. Scorning any sensible planning - food, gloves etc. up they go - there is a ladder - and are soon at the top surveying the immensity of the view. Time to go down, the ladder gives way....

Fall is a sweaty palms, nerve racking ride, that plays, with gleeful sadism, on one the most basic and widespread, of human fears. An Acrophobic's worst nightmare, Fall takes a very basic premise and uses it to good effect, building a primal, instinctively terrifying, anxiety soaked action flick, of quite literally, dizzying heights. This is, somewhat antithetically, both an easy and hard watch rolled into one. I frequently found myself holding my breath, tensing, jumping and having to take breaks to get over my own sense of fear, at what I was witnessing. I was heavily invested in the main characters, wanting to see them safely escape their horrible predicament, in spite of their reckless decision to climb an obviously rusted, dilapidated tower. In short, great edge of your seat stuff. Just goes to show how much can be achieved with a modest budget and a lot of inspiration.

Fall is 47 Meters Down but with heights instead of depths - 47 Meters Up. Fall keeps your stomach in your throat with its dizzying heights and anxiety-inducing peril. The movie’s plot is extremely thin, but that’s what you would expect from a film with this premise. Grace Curry and Virginia Gardner’s despair seemed authentic through their convincing performances. Panic and distress filled every shot as the camera soaked in the unbelievable heights and endless landscapes. Scott Mann once again directs an emotional suspense-laden film that feels incredibly similar to 47 Meters Down, even borrowing an identical plot twist. Fall stretched on a little longer than needed, but I appreciated the staggering suspense and character development that elevated a meager concept to vertigo-inducing heights.

Even if the story was kind of lackluster, the film itself was incredible. If you consider the tower as a kind of true main character of the movie. On first watching this I can instantly imagine the blustering cacophony of outrage about climbing technique from viewers. From the first, the film is rather jarring but honest about its juvenile depiction of "climbing". At the start I had to decide NOT to care about how realistic it was because it would be wrong to reduce a film abductio absurdum because it is a story after all. A creation. It isn't being judged on its ability to remind one of real life so much as to forget it. I do this 'forgetting' voluntarily and I seem to enjoy films more. I felt my body constricting away slightly and getting anxious during the gravity yawning scenes, 2000ft above the ground! The characters were reckless enough to believe they would die at...