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It seems that audiences just can’t get enough of death defying dumbasses seeing their vacations go up in smoke with deadly results. Not withstanding the gargantuan logjam of movies that’s come down the pipe the last couple of years, that’s seen various parties of friends get literally consumed by voracious, aquatic predators, we’ve also now got a Fall sequel to contend with, that once again doubles down on the idea that to bounce back from a spot of personal trauma, all you have to do is spend an inordinate amount of money to travel to the other side of the world and put yourself in mortal peril – for fun.
But while some franchises might take the path of becoming an anthology series and have us meet new people as they decide to risk their lives on holiday, Fall 2 attempts to forge emotional links with the original film by focusing on the sister of one of the characters from the original film. Will this gambit pay off, or do we find that the quality of this franchise has just suddenly plummeted?
In the aftermath of Fall – which saw two young women trapped at the top of a 2000 foot, decommissioned television tower – we find that Shiloh’s sister, Jax, is struggling with plenty of unresolved issues after the death of her sister. It’s bad enough that her big sister was constantly trying to boost her confidence by making her go parachute jumping and the like, but before big sis fell to her doom, cruel words were said that now can’t be taken back. Making matters all the more painful is that, since her demise, Shiloh’s become something of a posthumous celebrity, with similar thrill-seekers following in her death defying footsteps in order to find enlightenment.
When Shiloh’s friend, Luce, comes to visit Jax, she hits upon an incredibly bad idea. Why not keep going through Shiloh’s bucket list book and climb somewhere she never got to visit – such as a plank walk on Mount Kwan in Thailand to visit a stone dragon that is said to eat your fears. Personally, I’d tell her to eat shit, but Jax seems to think that she has something to prove and agrees, but once the pair get to Thailand, they discover that the route they want to take is illegal due to earthquakes, rock slides and heavy rain.
Undeterred by both the law and common sense, both Jax and Luce employ the services of a non-native guide named Jon, who agrees to take them up despite it being the rainy season, but to the complete and utter lack of surprise to anyone, once the trio reach the perilous section of the rickety path known as the “Devil’s Elbow”, fate starts dealing them a fairly crappy hand.
With Jon missing and large sections of their meager, wooden path destroyed, both Jax and Luce find themselves stranded over a thousand feet above sea level with no way down (well, there’s one way down…). But if all this wasn’t enough, it seems that not everything is what it originally seems, and Jax has to deal with forms of betrayal alongside crippling bouts of self-inflicted vertigo and poorly timed flashbacks.
While it was something of a scrappy affair, the original Fall managed to do it’s job surprising well. Despite the fact that it was tough to find empathy with the characters for making such a decision in the first place (Becky Connor scales the tower in the first place to get over the fact her husband died – in a climbing accident), and that some of the visual effects weren’t quite strong enough to maintain the illusion, the basic concept and some out-there twists managed to carry the thriller through some rough patches to be quite fun. However, while the sequel admirably hitches it’s trailer to the previous film by focusing on Shiloh’s sister, Jax, it’s a common issue for sequels to expand upon the problems experienced by the first movie.
Maybe this is more of a personal issue than a technical or narrative one, but I still take umbrage with all these movies suggesting that the only way to overcome personal trauma is to end up fighting for survival in some remote location, and this franchise still seems to struggle when trying to convince us that these people aren’t complete idiots for taking such risks into the first place. Worse yet, Fall 2 pushes that ideal even further with the way it treats the late, lamented Shiloh. Rather than the well-meaning, but foolhardy friend who sought to cure the emotional issues of her friend by foolishly risking her life, we find that she’s become somewhat martyred by her events of the first film despite me firmly recalling she was a bit of a fucking nightmare. While Grace Caroline Currey’s Becky is pushed to the sidelines, we focus on Harriet Slater’s Jax, who is wrestling with her sister’s complicated legacy and her guilt over some poorly worded insults that occurred before her death. However, with the appearance of Arsema Thomas’ Luce, we once again find a film trying to convince us that getting back on the horse is necessary, even if the horse is 1000 feet above sea level.
However, if that sort of logic doesn’t bug you as much as it obviously bugs me, the issues continue once the key players are actually “enjoying” their central predicament. While the original use of a decommissioned tower was wonderfully cinematic with the ground stretching away to a nauseous distance, most of the time during Fall 2, the characters are given the rather bland backdrop of sheer rock to stand against. Oh sure, we get the occasional above-angle shot that shows off just how high they are, but it just doesn’t hit the vertigo button anywhere near as hard as that damn tower. Also, despite the odd cool shot, the visual effects once again tend to eradicate some of the overall effect thanks to not being particularly good.
Still, that doesn’t mean that Fall 2 is a complete let down. While original helmer Scott Mann has stepped aside in favour of the Spierig Brothers (Undead, Daywalkers, Predestination), the series hasn’t lost its habit of flinging the odd curve-ball twist at you, and while there’s nothing here to match the lead imagining her dead friend giving her advice, the script still manages to have fun screwing with the identities and motivations of some of the characters. Also, Harriet Slater has to be commended for managing to conjure up a modicum of empathy in a genre that demands that their players repeatedly be incredibly dumb before they get remarkably smart. With all that being said, the main set piece that requires the girls to leap from flimsy strut to flimsy strut in order to make it to a radio does actually manage get the blood pumping thanks to multiple close-ups of rattling screws and creaking metal.
Somewhat inferior to the original, mainly because a cliff face is way less cinematic than a cartoonishly tall tower, I still have to shake my head in admiration that Fall 2 has the balls to propose another entry that conceivably could merge the surviving casts of both movies. Quite how they’re going to convince me that all involved would happily choose to go to another vertigo inducing, remote location is a problem for another time, but maybe next time stick them in a place that’s far more fun and picturesque to look at than just a boring old rock face.
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Where to watch Fall 2: Deadpoint: