As someone who suffers from vertigo, this is pretty much the nightmare scenario for me to witness playing out on screen.
Best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) are forced into a fight for survival as they find themselves trapped at the top of a 2000-foot high radio tower.
Director Scott Mann ( Final Score ) and his co-writer Jonathan Frank know how to wring every ounce of tension out of their simple-but-scary situation.
Reminiscent of single location thrillers like Buried , Phone Booth and The Shallows , Fall also touches on its protagonists’ personal lives to add further drama to their nightmarish plight.
Becky has already suffered a tragic loss at high altitude which makes her reluctance and fear butt heads with Hunter’s care-free attitude.
Mann shot with IMAX cameras in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California, while him and his production team built the upper portion of the tower on top of a mountain to give the impression Currey and Gardner are really thousands of feet in the air.
The techniques are a masterstroke as even if you don’t have a fear of heights, you will be gasping for air and gripping your seat many times as the aerial drama unfolds.
Currey and Gardner, particularly the former, are both terrific and cope admirably well with the physical and mental torture their characters are subjected to.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan appears in a small-but-important turn as Becky’s concerned dad James and Jasper Cole ( Steve ) is your ultimate sleazy, selfish desert-dweller.
You’d think there would be only so much Mann and Frank can do with their central premise but it’s not all hanging on for dear life as the girls show impressive skills and smarts to try and return to safe ground.
There are a couple of twists in the story - one I saw coming and the other being a complete surprise.
Overall, Fall is a tension-ridden tormented trip to the top of the world - and not just for vertigo sufferers.
● What would be your nightmare scenario to watch unfold on a cinema screen?
Pop me an email at ian.bunting@reachplc.com and I will pass on your comments – and any movie or TV show recommendations you have – to your fellow readers.
● Fall is being shown in select cinemas now.
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