Oh… shiiiiiiiit
Have we seen this before? Uh huh. Is it predictable? Hell yes. But ‘Fall’ has enough high – literally – tension and self-awareness to be fun.
Fall
Director: Scott Mann • Writers: Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann
Starring: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mason Gooding, Darrell Dennis, Jasper Cole, Julia Pace Mitchell
USA/UK • 1hr 47mins
Opens Hong Kong September 15 • IIB
Grade: B
Okay. Tell me if you’ve heard this story before. Some friends, two, maybe three, perhaps five or six, with a little touch of adrenaline junkie-slash-social media co-dependence go on a wacky trip – almost a dare – that has a hint of recklessness to it. Maybe they’re celebrating a wedding, a divorce, graduation, or just the thrill of being alive and young and white enough to wear a shirt that shows off the navel. But shit goes sideways and the friends start dying when they’re stranded in the remote location with some kind of predator – natural or otherwise – picking them off one by one.
Yes, yes you’ve heard that story. You heard it in The Descent, in The Ruins, in Open Water, in 47 Meters Down, in the upcoming Shark Bait. This is classic movie fare wherein youthful hubris is punished by mutilation and/or death. And as the years have ticked by, the central players have become more and more dickheaded, as if the filmmakers were saying, “See? They totally deserve it,” a fate once the purview exclusively of girls who have sex in slasher movies. This niche survival thriller has become a salve, to what I’m not sure – Boomers losing their power? Men losing their power? White people losing their power? – but done well these are guilty pleasures that are so easily digestible as to be almost criminal. And Scott Mann’s Fall is one of the better ones to come down the pipe in a while.
There’s no being ‘relaxed’ here
Fall is being heavily touted as “from the producers of 47 Meters Down,” so if you want to save the mystery for this one, don’t see that. They’re almost identical films. Shot in IMAX for maximum vertiginousness, distributor Lionsgate was so excited by early test screenings it ordered the film back into the studio for some quick redubbing and a bit of deep fake CGI to strip it of its R-rated language. So, though the main characters are stranded atop a 600-metre radio tower in the middle of the desert, they never once utter “Fuck” no matter how much the situation may demand it. Me? Ears globally would be bleeding if I were up there. But hey. Way to maximise box office, I guess.
Fall begins with just that, as climbers Becky (Grace Caroline Currey, Annabelle: Creation) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner, Halloween) watch Becky’s husband Dan (Mason Gooding, 2022’s Scream) plunge to his death. A year later, Becky remains ensconced in drunken grief, her father (The Walking Dead’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is worried about her, worry she spits back at him and tells him to get stuffed. Not sure how she’s paying for all this booze but one day bestie Hunter turns up with a challenge, one she claims Dan would want her to do: climb a rusting, poorly maintained, almost derelict radio tower in the middle of nowhere for thrills and clicks. Good plan. Sure enough, they get up, but the ladder snaps off on the way down and boom. They’re stuck. Time for confessions, delusions, rage, fear, self-pity, and reconciliation in between trying to get their asses down.
The rust is an omen
This is fun
This may not be the most original film of its ilk, but Mann and especially mono-monikered cinematographer MacGregor (in just his second feature) know what kind of film they’re making, and they spare no expense in ratcheting up the tension and maximising the widescreen format for some truly dizzying, white-knuckle images. Essentially a two-hander, the script has Becky and Hunter getting creative with what few resources they have to save themselves, cleverly so, when they’re not sharing deep thoughts. In modern survival thriller fashion, neither is particularly “nice”: Becky is using her grief as a crutch to justify her blind devotion to the memory of who she thought Dan was, and Hunter is a petty, insecure adventure vlogger who relies on follows for affirmation. Now, that doesn’t mean they deserve to die, and no matter what a pair of desert rats (Darrell Dennis, Jasper Cole) may want from the women, it’s unlikely they’d leave them up there. But this is the movies. Without people being shitty there’s no forward momentum – and no reason to embrace the high concept (see what I did there?) and its almost flawless CGI. This is premium B movie entertainment anchored by competent performances, VFX that serve the story and sweeping photography. And girlfriend fakes out a vulture. Brilliant. — DEK
LOne Survivors
Deliverance (1972) d: John Boorman
The OG survival adventure. Four bizniz dudes get in over their heads on a canoe trip through the Georgia backwoods. Banjoes. Squealing. Shudder.
The Descent (2005) d: Neil Marshall
Four friends (again) go spelunking, and find they’re not friends right before some cave creatures find them. Fabuloulsy grim. See the UK version.
All is Lost (2013), d: JC Chandor
A rich white guy who thinks he’s got his shit wired tight is stranded – alone – in the middle of the ocean after his sailboat hits a container. Nightmare fuel.