the fall movie review 2022

Scott Mann ’s “Fall” belongs to the trapped horror subgenre of films like “ The Shallows ” and “ Open Water ,” but it takes a dynamic that usually unfolds in the middle of deep water to thousands of feet in the air. Mann and co-writer Jonathan Frank have a clever concept that results in a film that should be avoided by anyone with even the mildest vertigo—I wouldn’t say I’m particularly afraid of heights but there are some scenes that made my stomach turn a bit. You’ve been warned. Sadly, the concept only takes “Fall” so high, and the execution, including some ineffective acting, editing, and other technical choices, makes this a misfire. It doesn’t exactly crash to Earth as much as drift off into the forgettable air of film history.

Becky ( Grace Caroline Currey ), husband Dan ( Mason Gooding ), and Becky’s BFF Hunter ( Virginia Gardner ) are climbing a sheer mountain face in the opening scene when tragedy strikes and Dan plummets to the ground below. A year later, Becky is drowning her grief in a bottle, avoiding Hunter and her worried father James ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan , taking a part so small that it’s like a favor to a friend). One day, Insta-star Hunter comes to Becky with a proposal: They’re going to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot TV tower that’s basically in the middle of nowhere, from which they will find closure and spread Dan’s ashes. Of course, it goes very wrong, leaving Becky and Hunter stranded on top of the tower with no way down and no way to communicate with anyone who might be able to save them.

Filmed in the Mojave Desert, the vast majority of “Fall” takes place on the tower, and the film admittedly gets some nice adrenaline from the initial climb and disastrous ladder collapse that follows. In fact, there’s a better version of the film that starts right with the climb, allowing the characters’ trauma to arise through their conversations on the way up instead of with a horrendous set-up act that’s filled with clichés and poor filmmaking (it also would have helped reduce the runtime on a 107-minute movie that should be closer to 87). When Becky and Hunter begin their actual ascent, Mann has his firmest grip on the movie, building tension in a way that can be pretty effective.

And then “Fall” stalls again. Hunter is given a secret that’s more like melodrama than realism, vultures and drones get involved, and the movie gets increasingly silly through its final act. The best “trapped” films usually rely on realism, making viewers feel like they’re actually trapped in the rocky waves of a film like “Open Water,” and “Fall” crumbles under that analysis. Currey and Gardner give committed performances in physical terms—it looks like an exhausting production—but they’re saddled with juvenile dialogue that doesn’t capture the terror people would really feel in this situation. “Fall” only works if we believe the predicament in which Becky and Hunter are trapped, but the thin dialogue, showy cinematography, and overzealous edits betray the potential of this nightmare.

Ultimately, “Fall” has been designed to be seen on as a big a screen as possible, which is why Lionsgate is going wide with it this weekend instead of shuffling it off to VOD. Much has been written about getting ticket buyers back into theaters with event movies that demand the theatrical experience. It’s too bad this effort to help keep the theater industry aloft will only let viewers down.

Now playing in theaters.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Virginia Gardner as Hunter
• Grace Caroline Currey as Becky
• Jonathan Frank

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• Robert Hall

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‘Fall’ Review: Things Are Looking Down

In this nerve-shredding thriller, two young women fight to survive while stranded on top of a 2,000-foot TV tower.

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By Lena Wilson

If you, too, are afraid of heights, you’re likely to experience “Fall” as a straightforward horror movie instead of a thriller. The director Scott Mann has certainly packed this latest venture with enough jump scares and bloodshed to blur genre lines. As a result, “Fall” occasionally feels overrun with gimmicks and gotchas, but it also offers one hell of an adrenaline rush.

The film opens on a tragedy. Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and her husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), are scaling a cliff face with their friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner), when an accident sends Dan plummeting to his death. Just shy of a year later, Hunter drags Becky back into the climbing game by promising her an easy half-day jaunt up a 2,000-foot TV tower. The two have been estranged; Hunter spent the last year becoming an influencer while Becky binge drank and contemplated suicide. But when they end up stranded on a small platform at the top of the tower, reconciliation takes a back seat to survival.

“Fall” loses its grip in the final act, as tension gives way to ludicrous horrors. Still, its twists are so bizarre that they’re kind of fun, and the actors sell them hard .

Most of all, this is an impressive feat of cinema. The bulk of the film was shot on a 60-foot platform on top of a mountain, to keep things looking realistic. Of course, that only makes “Fall” all the more harrowing. As Becky and Hunter’s brushes with death compounded, I kept flattening myself into my seat like a literal scaredy cat. Be glad it’s not playing in IMAX.

Fall Rated PG-13 for Ahhhhh!!! Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters.

Lena Wilson is a project manager at The New York Times and a freelance writer covering film, TV, technology and lesbian culture. More about Lena Wilson

‘Fall’ Review: A Don’t-Look-Down Thriller That Will Have You Clutching Your Seat

Two women climb an abandoned TV tower in the desert, and we're with them every shivery step.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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“ Fall ” is a very good “don’t look down” movie. It’s a fun, occasionally cheesy, but mostly ingeniously made thriller about two daredevil climbers, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), who decide to scale the B67 TV tower — an abandoned 2,000-foot communication tower that juts up in the middle of the California desert. It’s based on an actual structure (the KXTV/KOVR Tower outside Sacramento), which is used like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the skyscraper that became the pedestal for Tom Cruise’s you-are-there stunt sequences in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.” And if, like me, you loved that movie in part because of how deviously it toyed with your fear of heights, “Fall” is likely to hit you as an irresistible piece of vertigo porn. It’s for anyone who ate up “Ghost Protocol,” as well as the awesome rock-climbing documentaries “Free Solo” and “The Dawn Wall,” and wants to continue that shivery vicarious high.

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Critics, for some reason, now like to mock the visual sleight-of-hand that goes into a thriller like this one, as if the CGI involved were all too easy to see through. But in this case I couldn’t disagree more. “Fall” was shot in the Imax format in the Mojave Desert, and there are moments when I honestly don’t know how the director, Scott Mann , the cinematographer, MacGregor, and the two actors did it. Were they actually on a tower — and, if so, how high up? Were there stunt people, or was every bit of this brought off with computer trickery?

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The abandoned TV tower, like the KXTV/KOVR Tower, is, we’re told, the fourth highest structure in the U.S. It has a photogenic vermilion finish (imagine the Golden Gate Bridge as a rusty hypodermic needle), and it turns out to be the perfect setting for a movie about climbing into the sky. As the two women ascend, the desert below looks like something viewed from an airplane. The trick is that the elements of the image are all visually united: tower, horizon, climbers. Without a cut, the film will glide from close-ups to vertically angled drops to death-defying panoramas; the light and shadow are always just right. You know how it feels when you watch an old movie with rear projection that’s laughably fake? “Fall,” by contrast, represents a totally credible and innovative use of CGI. Watching the movie, we believe our eyes and, therefore, our raised pulses.

The two women have agreed to make this climb as a way to wrest Becky out of her funk. In the film’s opening sequence, we see the two ascending a vertical rock face along with Becky’s husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), who winds up plunging to his death. A year passes, and Becky can’t let go — of him, or of the anxiety that has calcified around the tragedy. Facing her fear, scaling that TV tower along with her best friend (they plan to scatter Dan’s ashes when they get to the top), is the only thing that will purge the demon.

As terrifyingly tall as the tower is, it doesn’t strike us as something that would offer that much of a challenge to highly experienced climbers. There’s a ladder on the inside of the caged needle that goes up for 1,800 feet. For the remaining 200 feet, the ladder is outside the structure. I wouldn’t want to climb 30 feet of it, but these two aren’t scared of heights, and the feat they’ve laid out for themselves looks a hell of a lot easier than shimmying over the smooth plunging rock faces they’re used to. That’s why they succeed pretty quickly. Half an hour into the movie, they’ve ascended to the small circular platform up top.

But along the way the whole structure has been quivering, with telltale shots of a nut or a bolt coming undone here and there. It’s the outside ladder that’s getting loose, and as they take the last steps, a chunk of it falls out from under them, the weight of that chunk pulling the rest of the ladder down with it. Just like that, they’re stranded. The cylindrical pole that’s left is too smooth to climb down. The rope they have isn’t long enough. And though they’ve got their phones, they’re up too high to get service. There is nothing up there but the two of them and their do-or-die ingenuity.

At the start of the movie, Hunter is all giddy enthusiasm, like a Reese Witherspoon go-getter from the ’90s, and Becky, lost in her malaise, is all po-faced misery and dread. But the two actors show you how these women come alive, and connect, by climbing. It’s through their expressive skill that we believe in what we’re seeing. “Fall” was made for just $3 million, and it’s good enough to remind me of another perilous small-scale thriller centered on two people doing all they can to survive: “Open Water,” the scary 2003 indie that basically extended the opening sequence of “Jaws” over 80 minutes. Movies like these come with built-in narrative devices — like, for instance, the soap-opera revelation that comes up between Becky and Hunter. There are moments when the script overdoes the millennial effrontery, especially when it’s focused on Hunter’s identity as a YouTuber who wants to document the whole climb for her 60,000 followers (“This bad boy is over 2,000 feet tall, and your homegirls are going to be climbing to the tippy tippy top!”).

Mostly, though, we’re with these two, living through every vulture attack and sudden drop that involves something like hanging from a rope and trying to grab a stranded backpack. Is there a pedestrian below who could save them? The movie deals with that possibility in a way that recalls the Robert Redford-stranded-at-sea movie “All Is Lost.” “Fall” is a technical feat of a thriller, yet it’s not without a human center. It earns your clenched gut and your white knuckles.

Reviewed online, Aug. 9, 2022. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 107 MIN.

• Production: A Lionsgate release of a Tea Shop Production, Capstone Studios, Grindstone Entertainment Group production, in association with Flawless, Cousin Jones. Producers: David Haring, James Harris, Mark Lane, Scott Mann, Christian Mercuri. Executive producer: Roman Viaris, Barry Brooker, John Long, Dan Asma.
• Crew: Director: Scott Mann. Screenplay: Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann. Camera: MacGregor. Editor: Robert Hall. Music: Tim Despic.
• With: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mason Gooding.

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Rent Fall on Fandango at Home, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Apple TV.

What to Know

Fundamentally absurd yet as evocatively minimalist as its title, Fall is a sustained adrenaline rush for viewers willing to suspend disbelief.

As long as you don't go in expecting anything realistic, Fall is a solidly suspenseful B-movie done right.

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Grace Caroline Currey

Virginia Gardner

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Mason Gooding

Julia Pace Mitchell

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‘Fall’ Film Review: Heights-Driven Thriller Successfully Maintains Its Grip

This suspended-suspenser plays to audience acrophobia

Like a provisions-packed knapsack, a good deal of emotional backstory gets shoved into the first half-hour of “Fall” before it traps two female climbers 2,000 feet above the ground in a remote stretch of desert for the rest of its running time.

Will that friendship be tested? Of course. But the true signal that co-writer (with Jonathan Frank) and director Scott Mann has his thrill-hungry audience’s needs in mind is that before adventuring besties Becky and Hunter can even get to the base of the TV tower they intend to scale, they lock eyes with a carcass-gnawing vulture, who gets a righteously gnarly, ominous close-up.

In other words, you’re in good talons with “Fall,” a better-than-average B-movie corker that’s almost like a corrective these days to the behemoths that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on mayhem only to bludgeon us with exhilaration-free, numbingly digitized peril. If you long for the sweaty-palmed giggling inspired by Harold Lloyd hanging off a high-rise’s clockface or Tom Cruise on the harness-necessitating side of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, you will likely fall for “Fall.”

Cruise’s “Mission Impossible” character Ethan Hunt even gets a shout-out in Mann’s and co-screenwriter Jonathan Frank’s screenplay, invoked as an adrenaline god by daredevil vlogger Hunter (Virginia Gardner, “Runaways”), on a mission to snap her pal Becky (Grace Caroline Currey, “Shazam!”) out of a yearlong bereavement following the death of Becky’s husband Dan (Mason Gooding).

The movie’s “Free Solo”–esque prologue, set on a sheer mountain face, depicts that ill-fated climbing accident, witnessed by the two women. Twelve months later, Becky has curled inward into the drinking, crying, suicidal life of a shut-in, ignoring the emotional pleas of her worried dad (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), until bouncy, sassy Hunter shows up at her door with her version of a self-help scheme: Secretly ascending a disused TV tower for the one-year anniversary of Dan’s death, Becky will then be able to get past her grief, while Hunter, armed with a drone and a selfie stick, gets to create a lot of sexy-dangerous YouTube content.

The screenplay is chockful of platitudes about facing death, living life, confronting fear, moving on, letting go, blah blah blah, but that dialogue matters less than whether Currey and Gardner are a believable Gen-Z team of self-gratification junkies looking like they’re having fun doing something crazily reckless. From that angle, the duo’s energetic performances suffice, carrying an authentically warm and teasing camaraderie into the California desert, past that No Trespassing sign, up hundreds of rusted rungs, and onto a tiny circular platform that threatens to become the site of Becky’s and Hunter’s last selfie when the tower’s uppermost ladder separates from its loose bolts and strands them.

Mann’s previous hackwork in the grizzled-male action genre (“The Heist,” “Final Score”) won’t prepare you for how dedicated he is to avoiding scared-damsel vibes and centering instead the pair’s fearlessness and smarts. (Panic isn’t absent, mind you, just saved for when appropriate.) “Fall” can then focus on maximizing its one-location two-hander, toggling between what’s outlandishly fun about enduring this particular hazard (which is based on a real TV tower, one of the highest structures in the US) and what’s believably clever in the details of how Becky and Hunter try to save themselves.

On the characterization front, things can get clunky — one revelation is eye-rollingly predictable, and a third-act twist feels cribbed from a lot of unreliable-narrator movies. But viscerally the movie delivers — the site-specific peril is suitably unnerving when the stuntwork, effects, and cinematographer MacGregor’s more height-intensified shots are in synch, and the rescue hacks these tech-savvy women devise from their available items (phones, binoculars, shoes, drone, selfie stick, tower light, push-up bra) are enjoyably crafty enough to earn the movie’s one self-satisfied bit of dialogue: “That’s some MacGyver shit.”

And don’t forget those feathered harbingers of doom. This may be the first movie to apply the Chekhov’s gun rule to vultures, a portent sure to satisfy the more horror-minded ticket buyers, not to mention anyone else eager for the kind of back-to-basics survival excitement “Fall” refreshingly serves up in this dreary age of apocalyptic popcorn emptiness.

“Fall” opens in US theaters August 12.

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When a high-rise climb goes wrong, best friends Becky and Hunter find themselves stuck at the top of a 2,000-foot TV tower. When a high-rise climb goes wrong, best friends Becky and Hunter find themselves stuck at the top of a 2,000-foot TV tower. When a high-rise climb goes wrong, best friends Becky and Hunter find themselves stuck at the top of a 2,000-foot TV tower.

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• Trivia The filmmakers had considered green screen or digital sets, but ultimately opted for the real thing. They decided to build the upper portion of the tower on top of a mountain so that the actors would really appear to be thousands of feet in the air, even though in real life they were never more than a 100 feet (30 meters) off the ground.
• Goofs IPhone battery indicator shows fully charged when the main character uses her phone for the last time.

Becky : Life is fleeting. Life is short, too short. So you gotta use every moment. You have to do something that makes you feel alive, and that shit, that would spread that message far and wide.

• Alternate versions The UK Blu-ray includes both the theatrical version and the uncut version.
• Connections Featured in Projector: Fall (2022) (2022)
• Soundtracks I Have Never Felt More Alive Written by Madison Beer and Big Taste (as Leroy Clampitt) Performed by Madison Beer Courtesy of Epic Records By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

User reviews 974

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• August 12, 2022 (United States)
• United Kingdom
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• Shadow Mountains, Mojave Desert, California, USA (Tower)
• Capstone Global
• Tea Shop Productions
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• $3,000,000 (estimated)
• Aug 14, 2022
• $17,363,261

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• Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes

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• What Is Cinema?

Fall Is a Dizzying, Thrilling Late-Summer Success

A simple “because it’s there” was justification enough for George Mallory to scale Mt. Everest. But for the courageous-foolish climber at the center of Fall (in theaters August 12), it’s grief that drives her up a looming, abandoned antenna tower, an attempt to feel alive again after a devastating loss. She has that in common with varied figures from cinema past, from the sad surfer in The Shallows to the mourning spelunker in The Descent to even Sandra Bullock ’s stricken astronaut in Gravity .

Fall , directed and co-written by Scott Mann , may be derivative in that way. It is also strongly redolent of the sleeper-hit shark thriller 47 Meters Down , both concerning two adventurous women finding themselves stuck in a terrible place. But Fall seems happy in that company; it doesn’t buck against convention so much as seek its own sturdy place within it. The film more than succeeds in that endeavor— Fall is an engrossing dog-days surprise, a nimble thriller that accomplishes a great deal with a remarkably small budget. (A reported $3 million.)

Grace Caroline Currey plays Becky, once an avid rock climber now in a stagnant haze following the death of her husband—which she and her best friend, Hunter ( Virginia Gardener ), witnessed up-close while traversing a cliff face. Hunter is a daredevil social media influencer, free-wheeling and reckless but certainly competent. She sets her eyes on a rusty tower in the middle of the desert because it seems like a novel thing to climb. Hunter coaxes her friend to come along, hoping some major risk-taking will shake Becky out of her malaise.

As the two ascend the tower, Mann ably builds the vertiginous tension. The tower creaks and groans; the ground below terribly recedes as the women work their way up a long and obviously corroded ladder. With clever camerawork and some judiciously applied visual effects, Mann gives the film a startling immediacy. It’s dizzying stuff, this obviously doomed journey into the sky. Fall achieves notes of poignant visual grace, too, especially a scene shot in silhouette as Becky and Hunter sit atop the tower, wondering what to do.

See, the ladder breaks, and their cellphones won’t work, and no one knows they’re up there. Fall is a survival story, a study in managed panic and clever resourcefulness. Befitting the genre, there’s even a menacing animal, one whose entrance has been nicely foreshadowed earlier in the film. Currey and Gardener convincingly render the nightmare, oscillating between the numbed calm of trying to work through a difficult problem and the emotionally ragged tenor of these two friends realizing the fatal hopelessness of their situation. 

A backstory secret is revealed, of course, one teased out subtly and then credibly processed by both characters. Fall ’s only major narrative misstep is a nasty twist that doesn’t add much to the film beyond extra, and unneeded, grimness. It’s also a twist that’s been done, in almost exactly the same way, in one of the films mentioned above. Fall is otherwise too inventive a film for such cheap mimicry.

Fall survives that bobble because what’s come before is so shrewdly staged. I know, intellectually, that these two actors weren’t really at the top of an enormous antenna while Mann and his camera circled them in a helicopter. But it often looks like that’s exactly what happened—much more so than in any number of movies that have spent lavishly on synthetic imagery at the expense of old-fashioned ingenuity. Fall is a crafty little movie that grips, and rarely lets go, for 100 or so minutes. It’s a welcome refreshment here in the badlands of August, when the search for excitement so often comes up short.

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Review: Two women alone on a platform 2,000 feet in the air? ‘Fall’ somehow makes it work

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One of cinema’s great wonders is the way a few moving pictures on a flat screen — composed and choreographed just so — can make a viewer’s palms sweat and heart race. Just look at “Fall,” a survival thriller that at times feels like an extended experiment in audience-poking, testing how many times director Scott Mann can induce a state of mild panic by repeatedly showing the same image. That image? Two young women standing on a small metal platform, perched 2,000 feet above the ground, attached to a narrow tower with no ladder.

“Fall” stars Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, a skilled mountain climber still reeling a year after witnessing the accidental death of her husband during an ascent. Virginia Gardner plays her best friend, Hunter, a social media influencer and daredevil who tries to shake Becky out of her torpor by inviting her along as she shimmies up an abandoned communications tower in the desert. On the way up, the ladies do have a ladder — rusty and shaky. But while they’re triumphantly taking selfies at the top, the way back down collapses.

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Mann and his co-writer, Jonathan Frank, follow a lot of the formulas for these kinds of movies, for better and for worse. On the downside, they pad out their story with Becky’s personal trauma, making her unresolved feelings about her husband’s death a bigger part of the plot than they need to be.

On the upside, “Fall” does what the best survival movies do, by carefully enumerating the resources the heroes have at their disposal so that we can enjoy watching them figure out how to deploy these pieces wisely — or wince as they waste chances. At the moment when the ladder crashes, Becky and Hunter have no cell service, and the backpack with their water is stuck on a dish about 20 feet below them. But they do have a drone camera, a flare gun, two phones and climbing gear. How can they use what they have to get help, while avoiding the circling vultures and whipping winds?

A similar question could be asked of the filmmakers: Can they do enough with this tiny amount of material to fill a whole movie? Well … sort of. Mann and Frank throw in some unexpected twists and obstacles; but while this film is quite long, it still feels like it’s missing one or two more story beats, either early or late. The space occupied by Becky’s heartbreak could’ve been filled with something more viscerally gripping.

That said: Oh jeez, that tower is so tall, and that platform so small, and those women look like they’re barely hanging on. For the most part, “Fall” works because it plucks on the same raw nerve, over and over. How many times can Mann freak out the audience by cutting to a vertiginous shot of the unfolding crisis? Every time. Sometimes cinema is simple.

'Fall'

Rating: PG-13, for bloody images, intense peril and strong language Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes Playing: In general release Aug. 12

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Common Sense Media Review

Profanity and mixed messages in perilous pulse-pounder.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Fall is an action thriller dealing with overcoming grief and fear. It centers on two young, adventurous women -- Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) -- who may be aspirational figures for teen girls. They're incredibly brave, and one is a fearless daredevil…

Why Age 14+?

Explicit modeling of reckless, dangerous choices. Peril comes from characters pu

Frequent use of profanity, including "ass," "a--hole," "d--k," "screw that," "s-

Grieving character gets drunk and has to be stopped from driving. Prescription p

Women wear low-cut tank tops, athletic gear, nightgowns and are photographed thr

Any Positive Content?

Themes of friendship, facing your fears, and living life to the fullest. That sa

The main characters are young women who are incredibly strong and brave, as well

Story centers on two strong, brave female mountain climbers/adventurers, Becky a

Violence & Scariness

Explicit modeling of reckless, dangerous choices. Peril comes from characters putting themselves in a dangerous situation, but threats that come from nature are terrifying, realistic, sometimes fatal. Wounds are bloody and graphic. Vultures peck and disembowel a carcass; organs seen. Suicidal intent displayed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of profanity, including "ass," "a--hole," "d--k," "screw that," "s--t," "son of a bitch," "t-ts," and "whore." One use of "f--k off."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Grieving character gets drunk and has to be stopped from driving. Prescription pills are taken, and a character pours many into her hand to indicate that she's considering intentionally overdosing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Women wear low-cut tank tops, athletic gear, nightgowns and are photographed through "the male gaze." Hunter is a YouTuber whose memorable mantra is "t-ts for clicks!" Pole-dancing reference and quick visual. Romantic conversation between married couple in bed together.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Themes of friendship, facing your fears, and living life to the fullest. That said, living by this mantra gets the characters into a life-threatening situation.

Positive Role Models

The main characters are young women who are incredibly strong and brave, as well as creative problem solvers.

Diverse Representations

Story centers on two strong, brave female mountain climbers/adventurers, Becky and Hunter, though there are moments in which they're objectified. Black supporting character.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Fall is an action thriller dealing with overcoming grief and fear. It centers on two young, adventurous women -- Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter ( Virginia Gardner ) -- who may be aspirational figures for teen girls. They're incredibly brave, and one is a fearless daredevil. But -- and perhaps this is because almost everyone behind the camera is a middle-aged man -- there are elements that undermine the female-empowering storyline. For example, there's a gratuitous pole-dancing scene. And the camera doesn't miss an opportunity to show how their tops just can't contain their breasts ("t-ts for clicks!" is Hunter's mantra). The women are trying to survive the elements, and the peril they face is nonstop and intense. Injuries are graphic, bloody, and even deadly. A despondent character gets drunk in a bar, almost drives home, and contemplates suicide. Persistent use of profanity includes "ass," "d--k," "s--t," and "f--k off." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (18)
• Kids say (64)

Based on 18 parent reviews

Warning, not for young teens

Great 11 and up., what's the story.

In FALL, rock climbers Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter ( Virginia Gardner ) set out to climb one of the United States' largest structures, an abandoned radio tower. When the 2,000-foot climb doesn't go as planned, the women must find a way to get to safety -- or die trying.

Is It Any Good?

Two women climb to new heights, only to find they can't escape the patriarchy in writer-director Scott Mann's vertigo-inducing actioner. Fall is competently made, with cinematography that will have viewers on the edge of their seats. It's one part suspense, one part horror. This is about surviving the elements, like a different kind of Cast Awa y -- one borne out of the main characters' recklessly overconfident decisions. And, just like in a horror movie, viewers will want to yell at the screen: "Don't do it!"

From a parenting standpoint, there's a great benefit to that approach: Perhaps, when faced with the option of participating in dangerous situations, teens who've seen Fall will "know better" because they've walked in the characters' shoes. There's no doubt that Mann is a dad, especially when the storyline takes a turn that reinforces the idea that "Father knows best." But there's also no doubt that Mann and his co-writer Jonathan Frank are men who grew up seeing women portrayed on screen in a different way than we expect today -- and that's where Fall plummets. Warrant's "Cherry Pie" blasts throughout, and it's hard to imagine that two 28-year-old women in 2022 would even know this sexist 1990 anthem, much less make it their ring tone. They're wardrobed so that their breasts spill out of their shirts, with Mann so aware that it's objectification nonsense that he writes a justification into the script. And, somehow in this story that's about a woman finding her inner strength when she's already incredibly physically strong, the script finds a way to make it about men ( sigh ). Just like Becky and Hunter's plans, this film starts with promise, only to drop with a thud.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the appeal -- and risks -- of extreme sports. Why do you think people choose to participate in dangerous activities? What role do YouTube and social media play in encouraging creators to attempt wild stunts?

Would you call Fall "female-forward storytelling"? Why, or why not? How do you think it might have been different if it were written or directed by a woman?

What are the movie's messages? Does the story undercut those messages? If so, how? What will you take away?

Is drinking glamorized? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

Talk about the courage that Becky and Hunter demonstrate. Is it misguided, given the events that transpire? Where's the line between daring and foolhardy?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 12, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : September 27, 2022
• Cast : Grace Caroline Currey , Virginia Gardner , Jeffrey Dean Morgan
• Director : Scott Mann
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Sports and Martial Arts , Friendship
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 107 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : bloody images, intense peril, and strong language
• Last updated : August 9, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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A Movie So Ideal for the End of Summer That It’s Actually Called Fall

August has always been a wasteland, the Sunday night of months, when the weather is at its sticky worst and everybody who has the ability to fuck off to someplace more pleasant has already done so. If you don’t have the means, there’s the cheaper sanctuary of the cineplex, with its welcoming darkness and arctic air-conditioning — except that after a summer in which theatrical releases mounted a rousing comeback , the studios neglected to schedule any big movies for this period in which we most need something dumb and fun. Fortunately, there’s a not-that-big movie that fits the bill of being silly and simple enough to fill a lazy afternoon without demanding anything strenuous from its audience at all. That movie is Fall , in which two young women climb up to the top of a remote TV tower for the sake of closure — and also content — and then get stuck up there.

Fall is part of that grand cinematic tradition in which attractive actors get trapped somewhere dangerous and have to struggle to save themselves, hopefully for at least the 80 minutes required for an acceptable feature-length. Recent-ish participants include Ryan Reynolds, who in a lull in his career back in 2010 spent the entirety of Buried in a wooden coffin; his spouse Blake Lively, who was trapped on a rock in the ocean by a persistent shark in the improbably good in 2016’s The Shallows ; and Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, and Kevin Zegers, who got marooned on a ski lift suspended over some convenient wolves in 2010’s Frozen . Like those movies, what Fall offers is a double layer of tension. Will Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) figure out a way to make it off a 2,000-foot TV tower unscathed? And will writer-director Scott Mann figure out a way to draw out the suspense for long enough when there are only so many things that can happen on top of a 2,000-foot TV tower and one of them is in the title?

Does it really matter? I’m tired. Tapped out. I have no means for a vacation at the moment and nothing else left to give to this season, and Fall asks for so little that it feels like too much to demand something as basic as logic or characters in return. See, Becky’s husband Dan (Mason Gooding) died during a rock-climbing excursion the two of them were taking with Hunter, and a year later, Becky’s still mourning — you can tell by the fact that she drinks alone at bars. Then Hunter, her internet-famous bestie, shows up with a proposal that will help Becky get her mojo back: They’re going to climb the decommissioned B67 TV tower out in the California desert. Becky is a sad brunette and Hunter is a fun blonde, and that’s about all there is to the two, despite a brief gesture toward an extreme-sports frenemies dynamic right out of The Descent . Braving the height looks like the bigger challenge at first — there’s a ladder up the side of the tower, so it doesn’t require Spider-Man-like free-climbing skills. But then the ladder, rusted and neglected, sheers off, leaving the two women trapped on a narrow platform high above the earth.

There’s blistering sun, and an attempt to get help with a flare gun, and when things get really desperate, some marauding vultures. Mann and his crew built a version of the tower close to a cliff to give his shots a real sense of dizzying height and a more tangible sense of danger. An incredibly weak twist pays off with a hilariously gruesome, triumphant finale. But what really makes Becky and Hunter’s little saga so seasonally appropriate is that it feels like a consolation for those of us feeling a little stuck ourselves. These two daring, adventure-seeking women head off for what’s supposed to be a fun getaway that tests their limits and restores their sense of self, and what happens? They get stranded, sunburnt and dehydrated, unable to get a phone signal or anyone’s attention as scavengers try to eat them. Sure, the vertiginous shots up the side of the tower are stomach-turning, but what’s really satisfying is the message that sometimes it’s better just to stay home. It’s Fall , get it? Summer is over. 

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Fall Review

02 Sep 2022

You can almost imagine the ’70s B-movie disaster-movie-poster tagline for Fall : something along the lines of “2,000 feet of TV tower terror!” This is an enjoyably throwback breed of thriller, a movie only interested in making your palms leak sweat and your adrenal glands go into overdrive. In those modest goals, it is entirely successful.

It’s a ruthlessly efficient genre exercise. Characters and their respective motives are established quickly and unfussily: Hunter (Virginia Gardner, in a fearlessly fun turn) is a thrill-seeking YouTuber chasing clout by clambering up the fictional tower; her best pal Becky (Grace Caroline Currey, the emotional anchor and audience surrogate for the “nope!” moments) is a grieving widower hoping to conquer her climbing fears. Both are seeking closure after tragedy hit 12 months earlier, in a Mission: Impossible 2 -style opening sequence (a comparison openly embraced when one character calls another “Ethan Hunt”).

So, against all available better judgement, the pair of friends agree to make the climb up the “fourth-tallest structure in the United States”, and within 20 minutes of elapsed runtime they're ascending the ladder. Soon enough, the rusty steel cables start rattling, and so do your nerves, leaving us under no illusions as to what kind of film this is. Essentially it’s a series of problems being solved under extreme conditions (How do we find a phone signal? How do we drink water? How do we wee?); setbacks piling up and minor victories being achieved. While that means it follows a fairly familiar route, there’s room for at least one major surprise.

Scott Mann’s direction and MacGregor’s vertiginous cinematography do a decent job of making a boringly functional structure look cinematic and exciting.

But it hardly matters if the plot is somewhat formulaic because the experience is so brilliantly executed; so richly, stupidly, edge-of-your-seat exciting. Scott Mann’s direction and MacGregor’s vertiginous cinematography do a decent job of making a boringly functional structure look cinematic and exciting; when a character looks down at one point, the camera whips down too. There are CGI and green screens, inevitably, but the location photography in California’s Shadow Mountains makes full use of natural light and big skies, totally selling the danger.

It’s silly. Of course it’s silly. You don’t need a science degree to know that multiple laws of physics are being defied. There are terrible decisions being made roughly every ten or 15 minutes (“It feels solid,” one character says of a ladder that looks anything but). There is dialogue about personal drama that feels like it could probably wait until after they’ve sorted all the life-or-death stuff first. It doesn’t matter: Fall aims to thrill, and succeeds with flying, vertigo-inducing colours.

Fall Review: Vertigo-Inducing Thriller Nails a Whopper Climax

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Here After Review: An Emotional Catholic Horror Drama That Fully Commits

2024 is the best year for western movies in ages, first reactions hail netflix martial arts thriller as action movie gem.

Best friends face a terrifying scenario when they attempt to free climb an abandoned TV tower. Fall is a vertigo-inducing thriller that keeps you guessing with a bombshell reveal . The plot follows the standard disaster track until clever twists ramp up the adrenaline. Slick technical direction sells the literal high stakes as the situation becomes increasingly desperate. A minor detour into second act melodrama almost derails the nail-biting crisis. Fall wisely resumes the tension and then barrels toward a sharp climax. It would have benefited from a leaner runtime but forgivable for overall popcorn cinema fun.

Married couple, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Dan (Mason Gooding), free climb a steep rock face with their best friend, Hunter (Virginia Gardner). Disaster strikes when a clamp fails. Nearly a year later, a depressed Becky drinks and takes pills in abject sorrow. Her concerned father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) tries to establish a connection. Becky rejects his kindness and continues to spiral down.

Hunter, now a bourgeoning social media star, has an idea to lift Becky's spirits. She wants to climb a derelict, two-thousand-foot TV tower in the desert called B-67. The only way Becky can reclaim her life is to be adventurous once more. That's what Dan would have wanted. Becky reluctantly agrees. They drive out to the middle of nowhere with excitement and trepidation.

B-67 soars into the blistering sky. Buzzards chew on the guts of a dying critter. They ignore "danger" and "no trespassing" signs. A nervous Becky ropes herself to Hunter; who begins to document their journey for her followers. They carefully make their way past broken transmitters to a small metal platform at the top. Hunter revels at their glorious achievement. Becky weeps in elation. They don't realize that rusted bolts have fallen from the ladder. It crumbles spectacularly into a dust plume thud. They are stuck on the platform with no cell reception or supplies. Becky has a nasty gash on her thigh. The buzzards circle at the scent of blood.

Related: Summering Review: Good Intentions Can't Save Flawed Coming-Of-Age Drama

Believability of Fall

Fall's most important aspect is believability. Becky and Hunter's dilemma doesn't work if you think they're on a set in front of a blue screen. Director/co-writer Scott Mann ( Final Score , Heist ) sells the nerve-wracking balancing act. The women sit precariously in the rushing wind. Their rescue attempts are intercut with long-distance and sickening overhead shots. The tower is a needle glistening in the brutal sun. Mann does a great job orchestrating the camera angles, visual effects, and sound design. There's never a point where the film looks fake.

Fall manages its dramatic arc with mixed results. Currey sheds a river of tears as Becky. She's been through a crushing tragedy so that's expected. The script adds an unnecessary subplot between the women as they dangle. These ten minutes of meandering serves no real purpose. Mann has you hooked then swerves away from a gripping primary narrative. He tries to avoid the pulp label by beefing up the plot. I say own the grit and stick with it. Fluff detracts from entertainment value.

A third act whopper puts the ship back on course. It's a doozy that caught me completely off guard. A good surprise takes Fall to another level. See this film on the biggest screen possible. Acrophobics should steer clear of this one.

Fall is a production of Capstone Global, Tea Shop, Flawless, and Cousin Jones. It will have a theatrical release on August 12th from Lionsgate Films.

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5 Reasons Fall 2 Can't Be A Direct Sequel

Fall: 10 movies that used their locations as plot devices, 8 recently announced movie sequels we're shocked are actually happening.

• The ending of the 2022 movie Fall movie leaves some questions unanswered and has ambiguous deeper meanings, adding to the intensity and suspense of the story.
• By the ending of Fall it's revealed that Becky is hallucinating, and that Hunter is dead for most of the movie — after her fall, she does not catch the backpack and climb back up.
• The tower in Fall is based on a real tower in the California desert and was specifically constructed for the film, creating a desolate backdrop that reflects the characters' isolation and loss of hope.

The Fall movie ending provides a nail-biting climax to an intense, high-altitude story of survival that leaves some questions unanswered and some deeper meanings ambiguous. Fall revolves around a grieving mountain climber named Becky whose husband Dan fell to his death. A year later, her friend Hunter proposes climbing to the top of a decommissioned 2,000-foot TV tower to scatter his ashes, and Becky agrees in the hope that it will help her to move on. However, they ironically end up fighting for their own lives when they’re stranded at the top with dwindling hope of survival.

While it earned an admirable $21 million at the box office (via The Numbers ), Fall didn’t really take off until it arrived on streaming a few months later. Fall was a surprise hit on the small screen, pulling in so many viewers that a Fall sequel has been confirmed . The way the Fall movie ending brings its story to a conclusion with Becky taking charge and figuring out a way to save herself is a satisfying end to a vertigo-inducing ride — however, it's the shocking twist that ensured Fall became so widely discussed.

Fall True Story & Real-Life Inspiration Revealed

Netflix's Fall tells the story of two women who find themselves trapped at the top of a 2,000ft TV tower - but is the film actually based in reality?

How Long Is Becky Trapped On The Tower?

Becky is stranded 2000ft above the ground for around a week in fall.

While Fall doesn’t provide an exact timeframe for Becky’s ordeal on the TV tower, it’s pretty easy to work out. She’s on the tower for long enough to become delirious from hunger and dehydration. After the drone is destroyed and Becky loses hope of being saved, it takes her a few days of no food and water to finally realize Hunter is dead.

The day after Becky realizes that Hunter didn't survive, Becky is attacked by a vulture that she kills and eats to regain some of her strength. By the time Becky is saved by emergency services in the Fall movie ending, she’s spent around a week on the tower.

What Does Hunter's Tattoo Mean?

The 1-4-3 tattoo in fall reveals that dan had cheated on becky with hunter.

During their first night on the tower, after Hunter’s car is stolen, Becky notices a tattoo on Hunter’s ankle that ends up revealing a four-month affair that Hunter had with Dan before Becky married him. The tattoo features the numeric phrase, “1-4-3.” Becky instantly connects these numbers to Dan because he used to use “1-4-3” to tell Becky he loved her.

Hunter reveals that she and Dan had been having a secret affair behind Becky's back.

Since “1-4-3” was Dan’s obscure way of telling Becky he loved her, Becky immediately deduces that he must’ve used the same line on Hunter to warrant the tattoo. Hunter reveals that she and Dan had been having a secret affair behind Becky's back. This is why Hunter volunteers to retrieve the backpack — it's partially to try and make amends. Unfortunately, Becky cannot bring herself to forgive Hunter, and the 1-4-3 tattoo causes a rift between the two friends that is never resolved, as Hunter dies before the Fall movie ending.

Here are the five biggest reasons Fall 2 cannot be a direct sequel to 2022’s Fall and why it should start afresh with a new story and characters.

Is The Tower From Fall Real?

The tower becky and hunter climb is fictional, but based on a real structure.

Fall isn’t based on a true story, but the 2,000-foot TV tower that Becky and Hunter get stuck on is based on a real tower in the California desert. It has a fictitious name and purpose in the film, but the filmmakers were inspired by the real-life KXTV/KOVR radio tower (via Digital Spy ). Also known as the Sacramento Joint Venture Tower, this broadcast tower can be found in Walnut Grove next to a Doppler weather radar station. Standing at 2,049 feet tall, KXTV/KOVR tower is the tallest structure in California.

The tower seen in the film was constructed specifically for the production at the top of a mountain to create the illusion that the actors were at a higher altitude than they actually were

The tower seen in the Fall was constructed specifically for the production at the top of a mountain to create the illusion that the actors were at a higher altitude than they actually were (via Radio Times ). But the shooting took place in California, the same state where the real tower is located. This location was crucial to creating the vertigo-inducing visuals of Fall . The California desert provided a desolate wasteland as the backdrop to symbolically reflect Becky and Hunter’s isolation and their gradual loss of hope as rescue seems more and more unlikely.

Why Did The Campers Not Help Becky And Hunter?

The campers symbolize that nature isn't the only danger.

When Becky and Hunter realize they’re stranded at the top of the tower with no chance of escape, one of the first things they find is a flare gun. Since they only have one flare, they only have one chance of alerting potential rescuers to their presence, so they don’t want to use it until they know someone will definitely see it. On the first night, they hope some campers in the desert will spot them. Just as the campers are getting ready to call it a night, Becky and Hunter shoot the flare into the sky.

Becky and Hunter face threats from gravity, harsh weather, and birds of prey — but other human beings can be just as cruel and uncaring.

The flare catches the campers’ attention as intended, but they don’t save Becky and Hunter. When the campers see the flare and realize the owners of the nearby vehicle are trapped on the tower, they see it as an opportunity to steal their car. This spirit-crushing scene in Fall highlights that other people can be as much of an obstacle to survival as dangerous circumstances. Becky and Hunter face threats from gravity, harsh weather, and birds of prey — but other human beings can be just as cruel and uncaring.

Fall is one of many movies that revolve around a single location for a plot. And each one tried to do something different.

Why Didn't Becky Realize Hunter Was Dead?

Becky was suffering from psychological shock.

The biggest twist in Fall reveals that Hunter was dead throughout the latter portion of the thriller movie . After she climbs down to retrieve her backpack, Becky manages to pull both Hunter and the backpack back to the top of the tower. The pair then try to charge the drone, so they can send it to get help. However, when the twist is revealed, it emerges that Hunter never made it back to the top of the tower. After the botched attempt to retrieve the backpack. Hunter becomes a sort of mouthpiece for Becky’s conscience and inner monologue.

There are some hints that Hunter isn’t really there.

Aside from the improbability that Hunter could survive the fall and climb back up, there are some hints that Hunter isn’t really there. When Becky drops the backpack, Hunter makes no attempt to catch it. After a couple of days, Becky realizes Hunter isn’t alive. When she fell from the tower, she hit a communication dish and bled to death.

Becky didn’t notice Hunter had died in Fall because she was so weak and feverish from lack of food and water that she hallucinated her friend was still alive.

Becky didn’t notice Hunter had died in Fall because she was so weak and feverish from lack of food and water that she hallucinated her friend was still alive. The hallucination was a psychological result of Becky’s denial about being left stranded at the top of the tower all by herself . Imagining a dead character is still alive as a coping mechanism is a common trope in survival stories — it can also be seen in Adrift and Gravity .

What Happens After Becky Is Rescued?

The ending of fall doesn't reveal much about becky's fate once she makes it down from the tower.

What happens to Becky after she’s saved in the Fall movie ending will likely be explored in the sequel. She will either resume her daredevil lifestyle with a new lease on life after fighting so long for survival or double down on her fear of danger and close herself off. If Fall 2 is a direct sequel, then it will follow on from the Fall movie ending and detail where Becky’s life goes after surviving her ordeal on the TV tower.

If it’s not a direct sequel, then the franchise could become a sort of anthology series introducing new characters stuck in unenviable high-altitude situations like the one seen in Fall .

The recent announcements of new installments for beloved films have surprised many, highlighting Hollywood's trend of embracing sequels.

The True Meaning Of Fall's Movie Ending

The climax of the fall movie is about having perspective.

The real meaning of the Fall movie ending is that life shouldn’t be taken for granted. In the blink of an eye, anyone can find themselves in a deadly situation with the odds stacked against them. The ending of Fall is bittersweet because Becky survives, but Hunter doesn’t.

This near-death experience puts everything into perspective and makes Becky’s differences with her dad seem petty and insignificant

After spending so many months mourning the loss of Dan, coming so close to death and losing another loved one reminds Becky to keep fighting and embrace life. This near-death experience puts everything into perspective and makes Becky’s differences with her dad seem petty and insignificant, leading to a heartfelt reunion between the two.

What Was Real & What Was Hallucinated?

Nothing about the ending of fall is guaranteed to be real.

The biggest thing that played out in the twist at the Fall movie ending was that Becky was on her own for much of the time. She never realized that Hunter had died, and she hallucinated the entire discussions and planning with her friend. Hunter's death happened after she fell to the platform below and bled out. This means that almost everything Becky saw in the second half of the movie was fake, a hallucination that started when she began to realize there was no hope.

It is possible that the vulture Becky killed was simply another figment of her imagination

Since Hunter and Dan had an affair, Becky was angry, and she manifested that in her entire anger and spite toward her friend — all within the hallucination. There was also the moment prior to the Fall movie ending where a vulture attacked her and Becky killed it. This was one of two vultures that was feeding on Hunter's dead body, and she shooed the other vulture away and finally climbed down and sent out the SOS message for help.

However, with the other hallucinations, it is possible that the vulture Becky killed was simply another figment of her imagination, making one wonder if Becky ever did make it down, or if the conclusion of Fall was another ending like The Descent .

Does The Fall Ending Set Up The Sequel?

Fall 2 is confirmed, but will be a new story.

While the ending of Fall was pretty definitive, two sequels have been confirmed, though little is known yet about the plot of Fall 2 (and especially of Fall 3 ). However, it is known that the Fall sequel will be an entirely new story, following on from the original in the thematic and spiritual sense more than directly from the plot. This is somewhat unsurprising, given that the ending of Fall saw Becky rescued from the tower and reunited with her father, James. Given her harrowing ordeal, it's unlikely that she'd want to attempt another climb anytime soon.

While the ending of Fall didn't directly set up a sequel, it did lay the foundations for what looks set to be a franchise of standalone movies about wayward climbers who find themselves trapped at dizzying heights.

What's more, the basic premise of Fall means that a sequel featuring entirely new characters in a fresh location has a lot of mileage. There's plenty of scope for Grace Caroline Currey's Becky to return too. While the chances of her being stranded yet again in Fall 2 aren't high, there's nothing to suggest she couldn't return as some kind of survival expert who's turned her experiences into a career helping others in similar situations.

The biggest question about Fall 2 is, of course, the location. It probably won't be set at the B67 tower again, but there is no shortage of vertigo-inducing locations the sequel to Fall could use. So, while the ending of Fall didn't directly set up a sequel , it did lay the foundations for what looks set to be a franchise of standalone movies about wayward climbers who find themselves trapped at dizzying heights.

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Fall stars Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, a once fearless climber who believed in exceeding human limitations and pushing herself to the limit. But when a tragic accident during a climb leaves her traumatized, she can no longer pursue the life she once loved. However, adventure calls again when her friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner) seeks her help on an ascent up an abandoned 2,000-foot tall radio tour, to which Becky reluctantly agrees after reflection. However, this ascent goes wrong, and now the two are stranded 2,000 feet in the air with no way down. Now Becky and Hunter must use their survival skills to weather the elements and escape their vertical prison before they run out of time. Fall was released in theaters on August 12 2022, and costars Jeffery Dean Morgan. The film also shares the producer of 47 Meters down, a similar thriller-styled film.

Fall (2022) Movie Review & Ending Explained: Did Becky actually survive?

Single-location movies have a practical purpose: executing a story without worrying much about budgetary constraints. And as the proclivities of humanity have shown, the more the limitation, the more the abundance of creativity. However, the lack of acknowledgment of the fundamental flaw in the premise sometimes stops a movie from becoming great. Notwithstanding, sometimes, a movie’s sole purpose is to entertain, either by eliciting a palpable sense of horror or a nail-biting sense of tension. Scott Mann’s latest film, “Fall (2022),” falls more on the latter side of the category.

It is easy to lampoon “Fall” as “47 Meters Up”, as it is being bankrolled by the producers of “47 Meters Down”, itself a cult classic and a fantastic companion as a double feature. Both of these films follow two close female friends who must work together to get out of an unsolvable jam when the extreme sporting event they are a part of inevitably goes wrong. While “47 meters down” finds these women submerged in a cage in shark-infested waters, “Fall” finds them stuck 2000 feet up on top of a radio tower. But we are getting too ahead of ourselves.

Fall (2022) Movie Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis

Why does becky agree to climb the tower.

The movie opens with best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), with Becky’s husband, Sam, rock climbing. While manipulating a particularly tricky opening, Dan is startled by a bat flying out of the crevice he was holding on to, disturbing him and losing his foothold. As Dan hangs in the air, his body connected to his harness, he tries to swing back but falls to his death. Fifty-three weeks later (one year for those counting), Becky’s life is a mess.

Swallowed in grief, resigned to alcohol, and distanced herself from her father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) because her father did not trust Dan to be good enough for her, she tried to commit suicide until Hunter visited her. Hunter tries to console her and suggests that Becky accompany her in climbing a 2000-foot TV tower situated in the desert. It would serve a dual purpose of both spreading Dan’s ashes once they climb to the top and providing a cathartic experience for Becky to gain closure on her loss and fear.

Hunter, the adrenaline junkie, has now become an Instagram influencer. The climbing of the tower is the latest in a long line of crazy stunts she executes to attract fame and satiate the adrenaline junkie within her. As they drive towards the tower, they stop at a restaurant for dinner, where Hunter teaches her to charge her phone by connecting her charger to the leads of the lamp and using that as a power outlet. The girls drive towards the tower the next day but cannot pass the gate. Thus, they start walking toward the tower, where they come across a pack of vultures picking up a half-dead coyote.

As they shoo the vultures away, Hunter shoots a picture of the dead coyote. The girls soon reach the foot of the tower, where they start climbing the internal ladder. Becky almost backs out due to nerves, but Hunter convinces her to keep going. There are shots signifying how rickety the entire structure of the tower is and how the screws connecting the ladders and holding them upright are precariously close to unscrewing themselves due to the pressure being exerted on the steps.

How do the two women get trapped at the top of the tower?

The girls reach the end of the internal ladder, which leads to a platform. From there, they must climb another 200 feet until they reach the top of the tower. As Becky and Hunter climb up the ladder, unbeknownst to them, one of the bolts comes loose. The girls finally make it to the top of the tower, where they manage to spread Dan’s ashes. An emotional moment that hit both Becky and Hunter hard. They also take pictures of them hanging in precarious positions with the help of Hunter’s 4K camera drone.

Finally, they decide to start climbing back down, but as Becky starts to climb, the unscrewed part of the ladder comes loose, causing the entire ladder to topple and fall to the ground. It also causes Becky to drop the bag containing their drone and water bottle on top of one of the satellite dishes attached below. Hunter manages to pull Becky up using the harness. It presumably causes a large gash on her knee, which Hunter helps her to stop bleeding by making a tourniquet. They also found a flare gun and binoculars in the compartment at the base of the tower.

Stuck at the top of the tower, Becky and Hunter cannot find a signal, thus rendering their smartphones effectively useless. After waiting for five hours and realizing that no one had heard the ladder crash and no one was coming to help them, the two tried to search for help via their binoculars and saw a trailer parked up near the gate. They planned to lower the phone a couple of feet so that the phone could regain signal, which would send an already prewritten message via Hunter’s Instagram.

How do the girls try to communicate?

They finally decide to drop the phone by putting it in one of Hunter’s shoes and reinforcing the shoe by padding it with Hunter’s sports bra-the logic being that the phone would regain the signal while falling and send the signal. However, the phone breaks, and even a dog belonging to one of the trailer park men sniff the shoe and finds the phone but doesn’t look up at the tower. The girls finally wait until dark before launching the flare from the flare gun and attracting their attention. Unfortunately, instead of driving the trailer to help them drive up to the gate, the men stole the car they had parked there.

Becky and Hunter start getting hungry and dehydrated. As charged emotions flare up, Becky watches a video of her and Dan’s wedding and notices Hunter’s gloomy face in the video. With the tattoo emblazoned on Hunter’s ankle (“1 4 3”), this compound forces Becky to confront Hunter by revealing to her that Dan had trouble proclaiming he loved her, choosing to say those three numbers instead. Hunter admits to having had an affair with Dan for four months, initiated by Dan after a drunken encounter. It forced Hunter to distance herself from Becky after Dan’s death because she had broken off the affair with Dan as she valued her friendship with Becky far more.

The following day, having ruefully acknowledged that the phone is broken and no one is coming, Hunter decides to climb down to the satellite dish and try to retrieve the bag containing the water and the drone. Using the harness, she lowers herself to the top of the satellite dish and manages to jump to the other dish and retrieve the bag. Hunter uses the selfie stick to reach the harness and manages to reach up. As she starts climbing up, Becky pulling her from the top, she appears to slip and fall to the dish. Becky, terrified, manages to peek down and sees her still alive, albeit her hands are profusely injured. But Becky manages to pull her up.

Do the girls manage to get the drone working?

Becky then tries to deliver a piece of paper using the drone to the motel where they had stayed the night before, but the battery starts running out, which forces them to retrieve the drone. Remembering Hunter’s trick of charging the phone via the lamp leads, Becky climbs up to the port where the tower’s night light is attached. Her wounded leg is already starting to smell, but she manages to climb up the pole with considerable effort, unscrew the light, and connect the drone’s charger with the leads and her marriage ring as a conduit. As the drone charges slowly, Becky holds on for dear life throughout the night, barely dodging the vultures smelling blood from her wounded leg.

Finally, after the drone is charged, the girls attach the piece of paper to the drone and fly it over the gate towards the motel. But, as fate would have it, and as a callback to a previous scene in the first act, a truck crashes into the drone and destroys it, shattering her hopes of ever sending a message. Becky soon starts to lose herself from delirium and dehydration, almost falling from the platform. She finally asks Hunter for her other shoe, so she can drop her phone and ask for help. But Hunter coolly replies that she doesn’t have the shoes because she isn’t here in the first place.

Fall (2022) Movie Ending, Explained:

What happened to hunter.

It is then revealed that she died when Hunter slipped and fell into the dish. Becky had only managed to pull up the bag. The “Hunter” who had been helping Becky throughout the rest of the events up to this point had been a figment of her imagination. It does make sense, as the “Hunter” who had been at Becky’s side after climbing back up to the platform had been more cautious, trying to provide Becky with moral support by talking about wrestling—a hobby which only Becky enjoys—or how Hunter convinced Becky to climb up the tower to connect the drone’s charger, to make Becky manage to survive.

Also, Read: ‘Fall’ Sequel to Double Down on Vertigo-inducing Thrills

Did becky actually survive.

One of the vultures flies down the following day and rests on the platform. Inching closer to Becky’s leg, it starts to nibble at the flesh. Waiting for that moment, Becky manages to capture that vulture by the throat and bash it, killing it. After eating it to regain strength, Becky finally manages to connect herself to the harness and pull herself down to the dish, where Hunter’s dead body lies half mangled by the impact of the Fall. The vultures tear apart her stomach exposing it further. The vulture nibbling Hunter’s flesh looks up at Becky’s bloodstained face and flies away, realizing there is another hunter. Becky, weeping with grief and whispering that she loves her, types a message to her father, inserts the phone inside Hunter’s shoe, stuffs the shoe in Hunter’s exposed stomach, and then pushes off the satellite.

In the next scene, we see Becky’s father, James, driving toward the tower and reaching the base to see police cars and paramedics already present. His heart sinks when she sees a dead body being carted off by the paramedics, but, he finally sees Becky, and the movie ends with their tearful reunion.

Fall (2022) Movie Review

From the standpoint of the premise itself, Fall is a flawed movie because it inherently exposes how underwritten and cliched the characters are. To undergo closure, the two protagonists decide to climb a 2000-foot tower, which is already rickety and falling apart. But what makes Fall so effortlessly engaging is Scott Mann’s direction, especially during the moments where he records the characters climbing and keenly focuses on the bent steps, the loose screws of the ladder, or the moments of physical prowess exhibited by the two protagonists.

It manages to make Fall reveal itself as a movie not having enough depth from an emotional perspective (the pedestrian dialogue doesn’t particularly help matters). Still, as a movie capable of eliciting tension and forcing you to have clammy hands due to Mann’s choosing to deploy wide shots and drone shots to evoke the feeling of standing atop a structure of great height, Fall does its job.

This movie proves Scott Mann’s expertise as a technically proficient and sound director, and Fall is one of those rare and engaging mid-budget movies. The visceral excitement and tension smooth over the dodgy CGI at specific segments. The performances, especially by Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, make you believe in her character arc, even if the writing doesn’t.

Read More: The Festival of Troubadours (2022): Review & Ending Explained

Fall (2022) Movie Links – IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes Fall (2022) Movie Cast – Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding

Where to watch fall (2022).

A cinephile who is slowly and steadily exploring the horizons of the literature of films and pop culture. Loves reading books and comics. He loves listening to podcasts while obsessing about the continuity in comics.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fall’ on VOD, a Simple-Premise Thriller That’ll Feast on Your Acrophobia

Where to stream:.

• Fall (2022)

'The Old Man' Season 2 Premiere Recap: 2 Old 2 Men

Stream it or skip it: 'the old man' season 2 on fx, where jeff bridges is an old spy going deep into afghanistan to rescue his daughter, is 'speak no evil' streaming on netflix or hbo max, stream it or skip it: ‘no way out: the roulette’ on hulu, a korean thriller series with a cop forced to protect an infamous criminal.

Fall (now available to stream on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video ) is a classic single-location B-movie hyper-focused on exploiting a single elemental fear: very, very high heights (also known as acrophobia). And so two women clamber to the top of a supertall skinny thing and we endure a number of EFF-THIS moments for the better part of 107 minutes, and sometimes, if it’s done well, that’s all you need from a movie. Now let’s see if Fall does it right.

FALL : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Some call them thrillseekers, others call them maniacs: Three human beings are but dots on a massive cliff face. They climb, with ropes and harnesses and carabiners and those anchor thingies and NO FEAR BEYOTCH! Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Dan (Mason Gooding) are a sweet young married couple stealing a smooch as they dangle, and Shiloh (Virginia Gardner) is the crazy one they jokingly call “Ethan Hunt.” But there’s an incident, and calling it merely an “incident” is like saying World War II was just a thing that happened once. Dan slips. Plummets. Screams. And from here, one can only make assumptions: He goes splat and ceases being alive.

SUBTITLE: 51 WEEKS LATER. Becky, despite being a Zillennial, still has an answering machine, which might be the film’s biggest test of our suspension of disbelief, and trust me, some real doozies are coming. It receives a call from her worried father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). She’s not home to answer because she’s at the bar again. At the bottom of a bottle. Crocked. You can tell she’s depressed before we even see her bleary half-mast eyes, because there are empty pizza boxes and takeout containers strewn about her home. There’s also a bottle of pills in the liquor cabinet. She dumps them on the counter, and contemplates. Nearby, a cardboard box with a big label on it: CREMATED REMAINS. That’s all that’s left of poor Dan. And there’s not much left of poor Becky, either.

She really needs something to shake this brutal funk, and Shiloh has a great idea: They’ll drive out to that rusty old 2,000-foot decommissioned TV tower in the desert and climb the living crap out of it. That way Becky can stare her fears right in the face until they cry, and then scatter Dan’s ashes to the wind. Shiloh is a professional YouTube stunt doofus known as Danger D, and it’s therefore her job to be an annoying idiot. And so she squeezes into her cleavageiest push-up bra, grabs Becky and up they go, the ladder all rickety and oxidized, the wind moaning, and did they put on enough sunscreen? These white girls are pale .

Notably – and when I say “notably,” I mean, “someone wants to hammer on our skulls with quasi-symbolism” – before they get to climbing, they see some vultures snacking on some poor dead animals’ guts. Now, what kind of vultures are they? Well, they’re Vultures of Ominous Portent, of course. There are no other species of vulture, or other types of portent, in movies like this. And so Becky and Shiloh climb to the top and get some sickkkkkkk selfies and drone footage and climb back down and live happily ever after with all the likes and clicks they could ever possibly need to nurture and satisfy their souls. No! They actually climb to the top and slip on fresh vulture caca and fall down down down to their horrible awful deaths. No! I’m not gonna spoil it, you gotta suffer through an hour-plus of queasy instances of acrophobia yourself to find out what happens!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Vertigo , but stripped way, way, way, way down. But it reminds me more of 47 Meters Down , in which Mandy Moore and Claire Holt sit at the bottom of the ocean and try not to be eaten by a murdershark, or Frozen , wherein a trio of skiers get trapped on a chairlift over a long weekend.

Performance Worth Watching: Curry and Gardner are perfectly fine here doing the not very much that’s asked of them. So let’s use this space to heap praise upon the vulture wranglers, because we get so few opportunities to do so.

Memorable Dialogue: Shiloh delivers a good dual-threat howler because it works both in and out of context: “The vultures, they can smell your leg.”

Sex and Skin: None:

Our Take: Fall is clearly a movie written by Gen Xers making a statement about the folly of younger generations’ desire to be dipshits in an attempt to assuage the insatiable hunger of the internet. The cruel, harsh world – symbolized by the Vultures of Ominous Portent, of course – shall punishest thou for your foolhardy quest for meme fame, ye peabrained youths! Bottom line: Don’t be stupid, Gen Z dummies!

Am I reading too much into the subtext here? Perhaps the greater question is, why does the “modern twist” in a good old-fashioned low-budget dumbass thriller always have to involve tech and/or social media? Does it function as yet another metaphorical missive on how the internet will be the death of us all? I sigh, especially in the context of a movie that insists its twentysomething protagonist has a landline. And to that I say GET REAL, Hollywood hogwashers!

To be fair, on a surface level – and let’s be honest, that’s the level upon which Fall is intended to function – director Scott Mann effectively exploits all the stuff that’ll make you clench your glutes as our protagonists do desperate and/or foolhardy things: Loose rattling bolts on rickety ladders, unsettling silence, nerve-gnawing soundtrack cues, the cold dead eyes of unfeeling vultures. He knows how to effectively manipulate the base fears of his audience. The film suffers from pacing issues as it toys around with an unnecessary subplot designed to make us care about more than just the characters’ core survival; this type of keep-it-simple-stupid thing should be wrapping at 85 minutes. And then Mann pretty much shits the bed at the end, progressing from UH HUH levels of incredulity to an outright NAH, although it’s out-loud laughable enough to be entertaining. It could be worse, is what I’m saying. Way worse.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Come for the clenched-teeth-emojis, stay for the LOLs.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

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