It closed the 2022 London Frightfest – and thank goodness we were sitting in the IMAX screen in Leicester Square at terra firma, because FALL is not for the faint-hearted.
Becky Connor (Grace Caroline Currey) is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband Dan (Mason Gooding) in a mountain climbing accident with a sea of hard liquor and a determination to hold onto past happiness and love, as well as Dan’s ashes. Her father James (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is understandably worried but a fragmented relationship is not the right solution or therapy.
However, a shining light comes along in the form of best friend and climbing content creator Shiloh Hunter (Virginia Gardner) who challenges Becky to join her in a daring endeavour – to climb to the top of a 2,000 ft radio tower in the middle of the desert where she can offload the ashes and gain some upper ground in her life. Seems simple enough and if you dare to dream, then a dream will dare to find you.
However, this radio tower is not exactly maintained particularly well and before long Becky and Shiloh find themselves stranded with a long way down….
Thirty years ago, Sylvester Stallone had to feel the fear over a similar death of a friend’s partner in the amazing opening in Renny Harlin‘s CLIFFHANGER and more recently the documentary FREE SOLO showed one man’s determination to get to the height of achievements, but FALL takes a very simple premise and ramps up the spirit and tension ten-fold with a movie that will re-enforce your fears if you suffer from life-long vertigo.
Admittedly the backstory is simplistic (and somebody described it after the Frightfest screening as GRAVITY on a tower), but if you sweated whilst watching FREE SOLO, you will probably be gushing buckets of the stuff within half an hour of the start time here and on a bigger screen it is even more of an experience and a justification for big over small screens.
Director Scott Mann stated at the Frightfest screening in an extended pre-film intro that he and co-writer Jonathan Frank plotted out the film in their yard in a mini-grid to see how far they could ramp it up. Mann also stated that the film was originally intended as a short rather than a feature, yet stuck with the latter because of the potential of what could be done. For audiences looking for a high-concept thrill-a-thon, climb high with FALL.
