Click here for the flashback interview with Scott Mann for FALL.
It is always with just a bit of trepidation that I approach sequels. Can it recapture the magic that made the original such a success that the powers that be felt a sequel was worth the time and the money? Can it be worth >our< time and money to watch it at the risk of sullying the memory of the original? Obviously, it’s a fraught proposition, but I am relieved to report that FALL 2: DEADPOINT, aside from its unfortunately sensationalized name, lives up to the original with its ability to put its audience in a cold sweat and keep the perspiration coming for its entire run time. It needs no sensationalizing beyond what it delivers, which is 90 minutes or so of vertiginous terror, impossible situations, a constant stream of hope of the most fragmentary nature, and an object lesson about why falling is one of the few innate fears we carry with us from birth. Seriously, prepare to spill your popcorn and marinate in that ci-mentioned sweat.
Far from repeating itself with a skyscraping TV tower in the middle of nowhere, this adventure takes us to Thailand and the fabled, and illegal, Walk the Plank hike on Mt. Kwan. The plank is very narrow and very high up as it encircles the mountain’s sheer cliff with only a chain at waist level on which to clip in with safety ropes. In our prologue, we see exactly what happens when things go wrong. Things like hard rain (of which there is a great deal) and earthquakes (of which there are clusters). Attempting the walk is Jax (Harriet Slater), younger sister of Shiloh (Virginia Gardner), half of the dynamic and popular live-streaming duo that made it to the top of that tower only to regret their decision. Jax has always been the less bold sister, the one who had to be coaxed into skydiving and such by a sister who only wanted to give Jax the confidence to stand up for herself. She required some coaxing this time by Luce (Arsema Thomas), one of Shiloh’s internet fans who instinctively knows which buttons to push in order to get Jax to join her for one Shiloh’s planned daredevil stunts. It helps that Jax has mixed feelings about her relationship with her sister, and sudden regrets of her own about the quiet life she has chosen to lead.
As for the hike, that will require an experienced guide in the form of John (Tom Brittney), a dude with no ties, a $5k price tag, and the no-nonsense attitude that can’t help but inspire confidence. Throughout the course of the wriggling through the hole in the fence designed to keep people away from attempting the climb, up the ladder consisting of stout U-bars sunk into the side of those steep cliffs, and the various maneuverings once the narrow wooden path clinging to and dwarfed by the cliffs, one hears the encouragement of “you got this.” That refrain will echo even more as we hear wood planks creak and rusty metal bolts squeak, and with more and more urgency as things go very bad very quickly. Same words, but an infinity of meaning.
It’s more than just an exercise in acrophobia. Credit returning writers Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann for that. The danger is omnipresent, but never repetitious. Added to that, each new logically hopeless challenge is presented by the Spierig Brothers, Michael and Peter, with shots and angles and editing that extract every iota of energy and instability from any given situation. We are never less that petrifyingly aware of just high up these characters are, nor how precarious those aging scraps of wood are. Credit Slater and Thomas for showing both sides of the courage under fire coin. Slater, skittish but determined, with a vulnerability that is just one more obstacle to overcome; Thomas brash and positively electric in her impatience to defy death and prove how easy it can be. The drama of discovering their limitations, and the relief and exultation in discovering what it’s like to exceed those limitations, is as engrossing and as rapturous as the dangers of the climb. It’s not easy to steal the spotlight from expansive views and ahem, sheer terror, but they do. No contest.
FALL 2: DEADPOINT keeps us as off-kilter as the climbers right until the end. Taut, tense, and constantly surprising, it never falters and never stops taking your breath away.
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