Film Review - Fall

Images courtesy of Roadshow Films.

Fall focuses on Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), two life-long besties whose inclination for adrenaline leaves them trapped on a 600-metre tall abandoned TV tower. Without water, food or reception, the pair find themselves fighting off the elements, their personal demons, and literal vultures, of all things.

Shot on a relatively tight budget of $3 million (seriously, how did they manage to squeeze Jeffrey Dean Morgan into this thing), Fall finds itself in narrative territory that should be familiar to anyone who's even heard of survival horror films such as Open Water, Buried, 127 Hours, or 47 Meters Down. After an unnecessary and hammy introductory act that sets up clichés like the dead boyfriend (and trauma-induced alcoholism of our main character Becky), the disapproving father, and the lifehack that you just know is going to be reincorporated later, once Fall begins its climb, the film wrings a surprising amount of tension out of the singular location the remainder of its runtime is spent in. As someone who's always been pretty squeamish about heights, for the next 40 minutes, my stomach was relocated to the back of my throat. The friend I brought along, who usually sits there stoically during even the most horrific scenes, was squirming around in his seat, hiding behind his jumper, and for the rest of the day, he complained of nausea.

However, from there, the film gets substantially more silly and schlocky. While I, myself, love a healthy dose of schlock (it's one of the main reasons I champion The Shallows and Oxygen as underrated examples of the genre), it often felt more like I was laughing at the movie, rather than with it. When there were multiple action scenes that centre on painting the vultures circling the duo as menacing figures, I couldn't help but giggle (vultures are infamously cowardly birds, and are known to vomit on themselves as a form of self defence). I suppose films like 47 Meters and Open Water have a similar deal when it comes to painting sharks as merciless, sadistic killers, but at least shark attacks are actually a thing (though most of us know they're rarer than media representations would have you believe). How many people do you think die of vulture attacks? There's a half-baked attempt to tie the avian antagonists thematically to Hunter's influencer persona, but, coupled with some other plot points revolving around the drone and Becky's dead husband, the film struggles not to Fall into a complete farce.

There's a much better slice of survival horror hidden in here, but what we're served with is still often undeniably gripping. Director Scott Mann creates some dizzying heights, but fails to lay the groundwork necessary for its committed actresses to really plant their feet on, resulting in a flick that's fun to gawk at for a while, but ultimately tires itself out trying to keep pace.

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Fall is screening in cinemas from Thursday 22nd of September. For tickets and more info, click here.