Fall hits some exhilarating B-movie heights
Like a viral video you can't stop watching, Scott Mann's film about stranded thrill-seekers mesmerizes even as it tests believability
Film Reviews Unknown
You’ve seen those videos on social media. Click-driven lunatics dangling off the side of cliffs, sticking their tongues out at the camera, ripping a big “whoooooo!” You grimace, maybe even groan, then share it yourself with a proper “oh, hell no!”
That’s what Fall is. Fall is “Oh, Hell No: The Movie,” and it’s as addictive as any of those sickening videos you immediately showed to someone on your phone. It is to this critic’s great regret that he saw it at home, and not with a packed theater shouting “uh-uh!” back at the screen. But even on the couch, with the ability to hit pause, it reaches heights (ha!) of quintessential B-movie greatness, causing exactly the kind of discomfort that elicits verbal rebukes.
Fall stars Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, a (former) mountain climber, still in mourning after her husband fell to his death before her eyes. Virginia Gardner (also there that day) is Hunter, a daredevil YouTuber who, nearly one year after the accident, is determined to get her pal back on her feet.
Hunter has scoped out a decommissioned TV tower in the middle of nowhere—basically a giant, rusting ladder to nowhere. It’s over twice the height of the Eiffel Tower, and Hunter has convinced Becky to climb up, shoot some Instagrams, scatter the dead husband’s ashes, and live, truly live.
It doesn’t take long for things to go horribly wrong. Decked out in story-relevant padded bras and tank tops (“tits for clicks!” Hunter exclaims, in what’s not really a rhyme) the two young women inch their way to the top, then find themselves trapped over 2,000 feet in the air when the ladder collapses. It’s nothing but a smooth pole all the way down, their cellphones don’t work, they don’t have much water, and they’ve also gotta take a whizz. What’s a gal to do?!?
Screenwriters Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann (the latter of whom also directed) pull task after task out of thin air, each of which seems, at first, to be their salvation. (Many of them also involve removing their socks and shoes, or other other articles of clothing, for story purposes. What a picture!) It’s a terrific example of the Cinema of Aggravation: they gotta accomplish X, but before they can do that, they must do Y, but as that’s happening Z comes out of nowhere to cause a fuss.
Not only does every attempt fail to get them down from atop this giant stupid pole, it fails in the most heartbreaking way. Each cruel twist one-ups the previous, like watching a soccer team elegantly set up a shot just to have it blocked by a miraculous goaltender. It’s hilarious. There are also vultures that keep circling, eager to peck at a gash on Becky’s leg bleeding through her absurdly tight pants.
Fall is produced by, among others, two righteous showmen named James Harris and Mark Lane who, in 2017, brought us another gloriously idiotic survival movie, 47 Meters Down. If you recall, that film sent two attractive young women (also in pursuit of Instagram pics) to the bottom of the sea, surrounded by a shark all hopped-up on chum. Picture Harris and Lane, feet on the desk, cigars in their mouth. “Okay, we sent two beauties down low, what to do now?” “I got it! Send ‘em up high!” “Brilliant! You want Thai?” “Nah, I had Thai yesterday.” “But you love Thai!” “Okay, you want to order Thai, let’s order Thai, I’m not gonna make a fuss.”
Yuks aside, Fall really is enjoyable work— if you let it be. There are some things that don’t fully make sense. (My wife was sure to catalogue them as we watched the film.) If Hunter is such an accomplished adventurer, why is she wearing Converse sneakers? It gets cold in the desert; wouldn’t they freeze at night? Surely there’s no way a tower like that uses just a regular lightbulb—and who the hell changes the lightbulbs up there? And what normal person gives a “just be you!” pep talk to a YouTuber after days of no food or water atop a giant pole in the middle of nowhere?
The film’s two leads certainly win points for effort, but their attempts to sell its few moments of heavy drama draw sniggers. Virginia Gardner has a bit of a Reese Witherspoon thing going on, despite the fact that it feels like the character maybe called for more of a “roller derby look.” Whether this makes for some refreshingly unorthodox casting or feels like a round peg/square hole situation is open for debate. What’s really surprising is the very final decision a character makes just before the movie ends, which no one will see coming, especially with the film’s PG-13 rating. But for a crowd looking to have rowdy fun—one that gets this kind of thing on opening weekend—Fall is gonna make them go nuts.
133 Comments
When does it come out and where can I watch it and why is this information no longer available on reviews??
According to the embedded trailer, it comes out in theaters on August 12th. But yeah, that should have been added somewhere in the review without the need to watch the trailer.
They still could have wrote that in the review that they were being paid to write.
Or they could have written it.
“Coming to theaters this weekend” is the default, isn’t it? I don’t think it needs to be mentioned unless that isn’t the case.
Well, they’ve stopped including this information on all film reviews recently, not just this one. Whether it’s streaming or VOD or in theaters.
Super annoying how they dropped all that helpful information in the title box. Almost as annoying as how Kinja is making me re-sign into every website individually, every time I return to one. FFS.
These days? I dunno.
Once upon a time maybe, but streaming has thrown a wrench into the works.
The new format doesn’t allow for this vital info, which is ridiculous.
Was wondering the same thing. I miss the Chicago crew.
Ditto.
Thai food is clearly a synonym for cocaine here, isn’t it?
Ever try to horn a peanut?
I don’t like heights, the trailer made my palms sweat.
Well I never heard of this and this review made me interested in watching it but then the review felt the need to say that a character makes an unexpected choice in the final minutes of the film. Which is totally a spoiler despite not saying what the unexpected choice is because now I’m expecting something at the ending.
So does the widow jump off the pole at the end? Because if that’s what it is then this review gave me almost every breadcrumb I needed to guess that and I’m considering it a spoiler.
Thanks, A.V. Club! I’ll always count on you to assume I hate being surprised by things.
I would totally have gone to see this movie when I was 20 years younger, but now I’m like, eh, I get it. I do want to know how it ends though.
She turns into a swan (with a padded bra) and flies away.
yeah this is definitely in “read the synopsis on Wikipedia” territory for me.
Yup. Nowadays I’ll just watch clips on YouTube and assume I saw anything important.
They fly away on the vulture obviously
Just like in Mario 64 in the pyramid level.
Naked pole dance on the giant pole. Calling it now.
I looked up the cast. I would be totally cool with this.
Like “Bruce Willis in a sarong” cool with this.
Seriously, though… I think jumping/pushing seems to be the most likely option (review mentions the other one was there when hubby died so could be revenge) but I’m not sure that justifies the reviewer’s ‘PG-13′ comment. Feels like something a bit more extreme might have to be involved. Cannibalism, maybe? I’m wondering if the vultures are a clue.
Sure as hell makes it sound like she jumps. What other unexpected actions are available 2,000 feet in the air??
She slides down the pole fireman/Adam West Batman style?
Yes how dare they spoil that towards the end of the movie, something happens.
Right? I actually don’t know where people draw the line anymore because it just keeps moving. A lot of people online are starting to consider even basic plot synopses to be spoilers. It’s silly. I think in a few years we’ll see people consider teaser posters and even the genre of the film to be spoilers and will throw big fits about it everywhere. Also, if your movie can be ruined by knowledge of a spoiler, it’s probably not a very good movie.
Obviously, one of them kills the other, skins her and uses her hide to make a parachute. Or, more shocking to a young audience, she DEACTIVATES HER SNAPCHAT.
Couldn’t help myself. Spoiled the ending. It’s… a thing.
Having seen it – there is nothing in this (or likely any) review that will give you a clue as to what it is before you see it. It’s not a big mindblowing twist or anything, it’s just something gnarlier than you’d expect in a PG-13 movie.
Out of my movie watching acquaintances, this vertigo inducing trailer induced way more nope than NOPE.
Meanwhile, an earlier version of this film starring Tom Cruise had to be scrapped because they kept asking him to at least try to look scared of heights but he just couldn’t pull it off.
Robots don’t have emotions.
“I can do all things through Xenu who strengthens me”
Xenu is actually the Scientology equivalent of Satan as well as a onetime frequent AV Club poster.** END TRANSMISSION **
except act
I just watched the trailer – I would absolutely disown that friend after the stranded on a tower incident if I were the widow.
She pressures the widow into a life threatening experience after the widow insists that a very similar experience where she witnessed her spouse die traumatized her. AND THEN AFTER SHE AGREES SHIT GOES WRONG AND THEY’RE STRANDED?!?!?
To assume those two will ever speak again afterward is laughable.
Honestly it’s kind of a surprise that they went for the heartwarming reconciliation vibe considering the fact that they’re basically in an elevation-inverted The Descent. The ticking clock could then be “how long til one pushes the other”
The Descent is precisely what I was thinking about. Note to self: don’t let friends talk you into some sort of cathartic yet potentially deadly activity.Granted in The Descent Juno tricked them all into the more difficult cave, which is definitely worse.
You’d think getting pregnant by Michael Cera’s character would be enough shenanigans, but no.
Never mind the late reveal of the twist ending that they’re a dude.
That’s why you never trust a pregnant Canadian teenager!
Excellent movie, with a not terrible sequel.
Ooh, I hope they are attacked by weird mutants. But what sort? Bird people?
“Can you guys stop spelling “THANKS FLASH” and maybe help us?!”
Cameo appearance from The Giant Claw.
Dude, you’re in no position to lecture people about their friends, you fed Captain America to the Hulk!
Neither of them was apparently ever a good adventurer if, like every film that requires the people involved to be idiots to make it work, they didn’t bother telling anyone else what they were doing and when they were going to be back so that help could come.
47 Meters Down is not a good movie. Hopefully this is better. Gonna need some good writing to make 2 girls sitting up there for an hour or more interesting.
According to cosmicghostrider they’re going to be up there not speaking. Should be something to see!
I hope that when they do end up talking they talk about boys.
This movie is really hard to Google. Fall movie? Fall 2022?
As one doctor to another, I hear The Fall (2006) directed by Tarsem is pretty good!
As someone who worked on cell towers years ago until almost falling off one due to an incorrect installation, fuuuuuuck this movie.But fuck stupid free climbers more.Edit: I caught myself right before my secondary PPE did.
I’ve actually always really wanted to climb a tall cell or radio tower.
I cannot lie, the views are breathtaking. I have some amazing pictures. The risks are life threatening. Every time you would read a report of an installer dying because they didn’t follow procedures was heartbreaking.Even water towers are really dangerous if you slip. Someone died retrieving a forgotten tool after removing their PPE. Slid right over the edge. Terrible stuff.
I live in TX and a lot of our clients are industrial services companies, including things like cleaning the inside of big fuel tanks and the like. Pretty much every time we hear of someone dying on the job it’s because they’re just going to do something real quick and don’t need to properly use their PPE.
My friend’s brother was an ironworker and some of the stories he’d tell of people ignoring safety equipment and procedures because, you know, that’s for pussies, would make my heart skip.
I have a small tower on my property and getting a certified climber to go up it is harder than you’d think. I had I think three different guys out the first time I wanted to put up a radio and cell booster. The first guy took a look and declined, the second guy said maybe in the summer during calm weather. The third guy went right to work, I mentioned to his partner that he must be a real professional with lots of experience (his partner who was not a climber said he was crazy, the company paired him with this guy just to keep a reasonable voice around him). In conclusion you can come climb my tower anytime you want, ironclad waiver required.
Reminds me of the guys who washed the windows on the first building I ever worked in, about 60 stories. Instead of platforms they just sat on little hanging planks with their gear hanging off their belts, and a suction cup they’d stick to the window to keep them in place. Every now and then one would lose grip and get blown 20-30 feet out from the building, hundreds of feet in the air. Seeing them sitting around at ground level they all looked like extreme sports enthusiasts (and probably were).
My buddy is an adrenaline junky who used to race ATV’s at baja in the early 80s.
Anyways he used to climb power line towers for shit n giggles.
He’s calm down a bunch now. He just races 2000+hp import’s in the 1/4 mile that trap 250+mph…
Smart cat to chill out in their old age.
I have climbed a few small (40-50 ft) towers back when I was young and stupid, but at my first job out of electronics school I ran into a couple of Tall Tower guys who did contract work for the company, and they were just fuckin nuts. They were saying that during some job in a small town, people would come outside at lunch time and watch them from the town square, so after testing and calculating wind speed and direction, one of the guys hid in some brush near the estimated landing site while another hauled a dummy made of coveralls stuffed with rage up the tower. Sure enough, lunch time came and a crowd gathered outside to watch them, and the guy on the tower tossed the dummy off. A crowd came rushing to the impact site, and when they got maybe 30 feet away, the guy hiding popped up, dusted himself off, and said “If I fall off one more damn time, I’m quitting.”
But I wish I had worked with someone so creative.
The synopsis alone made my palms get all clammy and sweaty
Me too. And I stupidly watched the trailer and I think I might quite literally throw up. I now know what hell is.
The whole scenario is number one in my list of worst ways to await death or die.
Oh I know, I’ve actually had nightmares about this very scenario, that I climb to some high place, and find I can’t get back down.
Same. And nightmares where I’m falling and falling and I know it’s gonna be fatal…
Knees weak, arms heavy?
“they’ve also gotta take a whizz.”Negan should have warned her it was going to be pee pee pants city real soon…
How many movies start out “So-n-so is about to do something incredibly stupid because their spouse/partner died, frequently right in front of them”?
I know it’s selfish, but I hope I go before my wife.And “tits for clicks” doesn’t rhyme at all.
“It’s nothing but a smooth pole all the way down, their cellphones don’t work, they don’t have much water, and they’ve also gotta take a whizz. What’s a gal to do?!?”
Well ONE of those is easily solved.
Hey, solving one takes care of another if you can stomach it.
Well two those are solved, but you’d have a porn movie.
Which I might be ok with.
Two Girls, One Tower
Devil’s Threeway?
So they have 50 feet of rope – can’t they just throw it around the pole and shimmy down like a lumberjack??
He’s a lumberjack, does he look like he’s ok?!
He DOES, actually – that’s my whole point! And he even has a chainsaw hanging off his belt!When he gets down he can eat his lunch and go to the lavatory.
Many of my best friends are lumberjacks and only a few of them are transvestites!
Thought this exact thing. This is what prussic climbing is FOR.
You’d think a couple of expert climbers would think of this…
Expert climbers maybe. Instead we got these two dingy broads.
Doesn’t he also have spiky shoes that dig into the pole?
Yeah but if you were wearing rubber soles and climbing a metal pole you’d probably get close to the same grip.
There’s any number of ways this implausible plot wouldn’t take a movie’s worth of time, so they of course have to be ignored.
They did dress in women’s clothes.
Probably hang around in bars as well. Naughty naughty.
My adventure game trained brain thought the exact same thing. So they don’t even try this? Do unhelpful desert bats steal the rope? Do they at least save their pie to throw at a yeti?
Just thought of that too.
What’s really surprising is the very final decision a character makes just before the movie ends, which no one will see coming, especially with the film’s PG-13 rating.Are you serious? Why would you put that in a review?Also, it wasn’t originally PG-13. They used a deepfake tech to remove over 30 f-bombs from the movie after it was bought to get it to a PG-13.
Yeah I read an article about that. It seems weird that they would have to go to such trouble. They didn’t need such tech to make network TV versions of movies with bad language back in the day.
Network TV either cuts snippets of dialog entirely or has ridiculously obvious dubs that don’t match the actor’s lip movements and stick out like a sore thumb. They could never use that method for a movie release. They needed the changed dialog to match the actor’s voice and change their lip movements to match the new dialog. Apparently there weren’t even that many swears in the script, but one of the actors said a decent portion of it was ad-libbed and she ended up dropping a lot of f-bombs in those moments. The director noted it would be impossible, both for practical and financial reasons, to do reshoots so deepfake tech was the only viable solution, because the studio demanded it to be PG-13.
The best made for tv dub I EVER heard was for some teen comedy back in the day, can’t remember the name. Anyway I remember the scene quite well, it OG line from some teen guy in the back seat of the car was something like “I think I’m gonna puke all over the place.” Wanna hazard a guess as to what the NEW and presumably tone down line was?I think I’m gonna PISS all over the place. LMAO
No, they just dubbed it over with non-nonsensical jibberish.
We had a tv version of Die Hard 2 on VHS when I was growing up and until my brother was in his late teens he though that Bruce Willis’ catchphrase was “Yippie-Kai-Yay, Mr. Falcon”
The best part of that dubbing was that the person saying “Mr. Falcon” had a super different accent.
“I’m tired off all the mother-father altitude at the top of this goose-dinged tower!”-Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, presumably
I hope they kept the unsimulated sex scene atop the TV tower.
A few years ago, my uncle told me about when my grandfather was looking for work in ‘50s. He took a job re-painting an 1800′ tall TV tower in the area, then did it again a few years later. When my uncle brought it up some years later, my grandfather just nonchalantly said, “Well, I was just doing the job they paid me to do.” As my uncle said, he had balls of steel.
I don’t know about then but nowadays they often have elevators.
It was similar to this movie – a ladder and maybe two carabiners on ropes to alternate every so often on the rungs or a safety rod running along the ladder.
That’s The Greatest Generation for ya!
It’s amazing how many “people trapped in a place and they’ll die soon” movies there are, going back to at least Open Water and that non-Disney movie Frozen (which I assume has caused many a terrible children’s movie night mixup). In a sauna! In a shark cage! Blake Lively on a sandbar with a shark! Now-husband Ryan Reynolds in a coffin in Iraq! Under a goddamn swimming pool cover! I’d assume they’re basically cheap to make with a small cast, and plenty of green screen.(By the way, I had no idea 90s cutie Robyn Lively was Blake’s sister [update: half-sister, it turns out], but I learned that from the Mint Mobile ads, which I get on YouTube all the time.)
Single location movies are the Holy Grail of low budget filmmaking for self evident reasons. And they can definitely work when done well: Cube, Paranormal Activity, etc.
Wait. Are you saying that all the different cubes in Cube are actually the same set with different props? Wow!
When the annual Black List of unproduced scripts comes out, I like to go through and count how many of them are about one or two people stuck in a single location/perilous situation. The confluence of them being cheap to produce but also an effective writer’s talent showcase that also demonstrates to producers that they can sustain a narrative under extreme constraints seems to make them very popular for spec scripts. (They’re definitely top three subjects for Black List scripts, the other two being “‘True story’ of a famous figure and/or Hollywood production” and anything that starts with “A hitman/hitwoman…”)
Cube is great. Due for a rewatch soon.
I mean almost if not all of the Cube franchise. (Soooo underrated/appreciated)
If that cube ain’t gleaming, I don’t want to know about it!
Try to find that one on physical media – you’ll pay a pretty penny
And Jason Lively of European Vacation and Night of the Creeps fame is their brother.
Speaking of unfortunate mixups for children’s movie night, the recent death of Raymond Briggs (author of the 1978 children’s book The Snowman) reminds me that the 1982 movie of Briggs work (called “The Snowman”) should not be confused with the 2017 movie “The Snowman” about a serial killer that makes snowpeople using body parts of his victims (itself based on a 2007 novel also called “The Snowman”).
Dear Mister PoliceHe gave you all the clues (about it being a different movie)
The 2017 version got a great “D” review hereThe Snowman
Is the sauna also a time machine?
Reminds me very much (too much?) of the movie Frozen (not the Disney one) in which a couple gets stranded on a ski lift overnight during a storm. Fun flick!
And they learn the true meaning of Christmas?
Less Christmas, more Wolf Thanksgiving.
Sounds like The Descent, just on a pole instead of in a cave.
That’s basically Hustlers.
Looking at you, Aron “127 Hours” Ralston, but if you were going to do incredibly risky shit at the ass end of nowhere, why wouldn’t you let at least one person know where you were going and when you expected to return? This is DUMB.
I think I’m just having trouble getting over the idea that they would go out there, middle of nowhere, two of them, experienced adventurers, to climb some godforsaken tower and just…not tell anyone. I feel like any kind of climb merits that particular safety precaution.The Descent’s plot mechanism for that was reasonable.Makes me want to slap the dumb right out of not-Reese-Witherspoon.
They’ve done girls in jeopardy down under the sea, and up a half-mile in the sky. I guess stranding them across a vast parking lot looking for their keys is next.
“Many of them also involve removing their socks and shoes…”So, Quentin Tarantino was involved?
As someone who has always had a fear of heights / white knuckles on air planes / whimpers whenever I’ve gone up the CN Tower, I am beyond eager to see this visually horrifying film 😀
from the safety of sea level
[Not really spoilers, since you will figure them out instantly.]I came to comment, if nothing else, about the light bulb changes, but the review kindly beat me to it. Parts of the film are fun, if you choose to ignore the stupidness and Wile E. Coyote understanding of the laws of physics, pretty much throughout. You will also spot the early plot twist before they can get the words out of their mouths, and the later importance of the seemingly random bit of electrical information imparted in the diner. Etc. You are in danger of falling off at night when sleeping, yet somehow you ignore the large carabiner on your harness and the metal grating to which you could easily attach it. Who designed this tower, and why did they make it even when in good repair a death trap for whomever had to climb to the top? You get less cell phone reception higher up than lower down? What “interference” from an antenna that is no longer in use? Why not make a parachute for the cell phone? You brought makeup but of course do not have a mirror that you could use for signalling? Write your own list!