Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Stars: Arsema Thomas, Harriet Slater, Tom Brittney
I am, if you’ll pardon the groan-worthy pun upfront, a Fall guy. Four years ago on National Cinema Weekend in the UK, Scott Mann’s silly vertiginous thriller was the third film in a row I squeezed into a super Saturday of movies and by far the most gripping. Anyone who knows me would attest that when it comes to extreme sports, heights, or a dreaded combination of the two, I’m just about the furthest you’d get from a willing participant. I get dizzy near clifftops (and I live near the sea). Even ladders unsettle me and make me want to hug the floor. But, as an avid cinemagoing thrill-seeker, the opportunity to experience these abject terrors vicariously and safely seems simply irresistible. Make it a loopy high-concept offering with the opportunity for ridiculous twists and I’m putty in your hands. Of course I gave the first movie my Seal of Approval.
For many, news of a sequel to that nonsense will have been met with derisive laughter. Surely, after getting marooned atop the B67 telecoms tower in the first movie, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) wouldn’t do something so foolish again. A girl’s gotta learn some day. Assuming the movies would share a theme but not recurring characters, I simply stuck it on my To Watch list and started checking off the days. Believe it or not, dear reader, Fall 2 is one of the movies of 2026 I have been genuinely looking forward to the most. Prepare that padded cell now.
Turns out I was half-right on both scores; in both looking forward to this spurious, unnecessary sequel and in assuming it wouldn’t be a direct follow-up. Incredibly, it is a direct follow-up, albeit with a new pair of less-experienced thrill-seekers to latch onto. Enter Jax (Harriet Slater), younger sister of Hunter (Virginia Gardner) who – spoiler alert – plummeted to her death partway through movie #1. In spite of this trauma-inducing close-to-the-bone cautionary tale from within her own family, Jax has her arm twisted into fulfilling one of the unachieved climbs from her dead sister’s ‘Fuck-It List’; a scrapbook of partially completed dreams. The next page after the B67 tower highlights Mount Kwan, a sheer rockface 500 miles south of Bangkok that is home to a notorious ‘plank walk’ some 4,000ft above sea level. She is goaded into scaling this ridiculous crag by Luce (Arsema Thomas), a former college buddy of Hunter’s with a cavalier attitude to, well, everything.
Americans have had a rough time of it in Thailand this year at the movies, fending off improbable sharks in The Devil’s Mouth and killer whales in, well, Killer Whale (also starring the aforementioned Gardner). Maybe it’s time to cross the country off of the tourism route for a little. Regardless, Jax and Luce make the trip and, for the price of $5,000, hire a guide named John (Tom Brittney) who’ll show them the way despite it being the middle of, wait for it, wet season. Also, it’s on a restricted path so they’ll catch jail time if they’re caught. Also, did I mention Jax is about as keen on heights as I am? This is a disaster waiting to happen before any of them have set a foot on the 4,000ft rung ladder that leads up to the long ledge of rotten planks supposedly put there by 13th century monks.
Mann co-writes, again with creative buddy Jonathan Frank, but directing duties are handed off to the brothers Spierig, probably best known for (counts fingers) the eighth Saw film, Jigsaw. Granted, if you’re going to hire anyone to turn the screws on the audience, why not some siblings who’ve literally turned the screws on the audience. The mixed news is that the Spierigs seem only sporadically up to the job. Some leering POV shots give the requisite shudder sensations and there’s a nifty bit of work that results in the camera twisting in a loop between characters, but often as not Fall 2 throws away opportunities to ratchet up the tension.
An ill-timed earthquake disappears John from the equation with next to no dramatic fanfare. And, once Luce and Jax find themselves stranded on a particularly vertiginous outcropping referred to as The Devil’s Elbow (c’mon), there’s an odd casualness to what follows. Neither of the women seem bothered by the lack of food, water or secure sleeping space. More bafflingly they seem to spend hours – even days – between attempts to improve their situation. They’re stranded an entire night before Luce happens to remember/mention that she has a fricking laser pen, not to mention the light on her handheld camera that could be used to signal a bar on the ground for help. As bad is the recurring sense that portions of their ordeal have very much been shot on a soundstage. There’s not much wind up there, and rarely do either of them seem cold. Fall 2 can seem, well, sloppy.
The good news and major saving grace for us Fallies (term to be patented), is that the film still delivers in other ways. The ledge offers considerably less room to manoeuvre than the top of the telecoms tower in the first movie, earning many queasy moments without the need for much impetus. The riskier sequences require a more determined suspension of disbelief than last time due to some slightly insufficient CG, but it still turns to heart-in-mouth stuff whenever the pair try some ill-advised free soloing. And there’s also, thankfully, plenty more melodrama as well as not one but two major plot twists. To say more on that score wouldn’t be sporting. Suffice to say, however, that this one doesn’t hang itself on the same reveal that made the first one so memorable. It has crazier ideas in mind, leading to an improbable riff on Cliffhanger territory across a 40ft final surprise.
By this point you should already know if you’re on board for such abundant nonsense. Evidently the first movie made it’s money back and then some because not only is this movie here (minus it’s stateside subtitle Deadpoint) but the entire thing is very much geared toward an anticipated grudge-match trilogy capper, and who knows what else beyond that. Even if things are less focused this time out (exhibit A; that couldn’t-give-a-toss cold open), there are enough opportunities for the gleefully phobic to recoil into their seatbacks. That’s plenty for me.
Keep ’em silly, keep ’em coming. More Fall me.
The Lost Highway Hotel 