The quest for adventure, a life truly lived, is traditionally placed within cinematic portrayals to curate a source of profound inspiration and motivation to make the most of one’s life, as evident in endless road dramas, coming-of-age flicks or travel documentaries.

However, some of these film representations of extreme adventures dip into categories signalling immense anxiety, threat, danger and the fight for survival, pushing a protagonist to the point of appreciating and respecting life by making them come close to losing it. This happens in the specific subgenre of mountain-climbing films, proving to be as niche yet stable as the shark sub-genre.

These films are defined by their focus on a band of explorers suiting up and hiking up dangerous yet ‘rewarding’ mountains, initially opting itself as an aforementioned life motivation feature before suddenly delving into a survival thriller once it all goes wrong. Previous adventure, mountain-climbing features include Kevin Macdonald’s Touching the Void,  Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger, and Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest; all narrating the apparent exhilarating thrill of donning one of Mother Nature’s grandest hikes.

The latest contribution to this niche survival-oriented subgenre is Fall 2: Deadpoint (as it’s known in the US), directed by brothers Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, based on a screenplay by Scott Mann and Jonathon Frank, as a sequel to Fall, which was directed by Mann. The directors’ past credits include Predestination, Jigsaw, and Winchester; meanwhile, Mann is also credited as writer on the first film.

The thriller stars Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas as Jax and Luce, two girls who brave an illegal mountain hiking trail in Thailand to fulfil the wishes of the recently deceased Shiloh Hunter, Jax’s sister and Luce’s friend, who died during a pole climb as depicted in the first film. Yet when poor weather conditions cause a destructive rock slide, the girls find themselves alone and stranded on one plank at a height of 4,000 feet. Tom Brittney also appears as John, the girls’ guide, with Fall star Virginia Gardner appearing as Shiloh via flashbacks.

Fall 2 seems to get one rule of a sequel well and truly out of the way: expansion and taking the first film’s premise to a whole new level, pardon the pun. An illegal hiking trail in another country going south proves to raise the stakes when reflecting on this newfound film series’ concept, especially focusing on the marketing visuals emphasising the height and threat of jagged rocks with only some flimsy wooden planks and rope to keep two inexperienced girls safe. Nonetheless, this sequel just falls short in making the most of its premise/hook of a location to be stranded on, despite the location proving to raise the stakes when compared to the predecessor.

Despite the film making excellent use of almost GoPro cameras, displaying a POV shot of the climbers as they make the grave mistake of looking down during climbs and orchestrating some nauseating yet thrilling action sequences with survival as the goal, it has its protagonists sitting down and talking or sleeping more than actually struggling against their dire circumstances.

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Additionally, we have the stifling and frustrating issue of Fall 2‘s pacing, which is immediately cemented as being as fast as the central mountain is high. The girls meet in the wake of Shiloh’s passing, and within moments they’re on a journey to Thailand; it reads on the screen as quickly and swiftly as reading those words.

There is one brief, flickering attempt at offering up a plot and character obstacle in having Jax object to carrying out her deceased sibling’s wish, yet it’s as resolved and ignored as quickly as it was established. Jax has just seemingly packed up her grief in the hiking backpack and replicated her sister’s lifestyle. Fall 2: Deadpoint is weighed down by a sticky contrast, floundering as the aforementioned solid fulfilment of its role as a sequel by expanding the story depicted in the original film, building more context around the Hunter family, and the grappling strive for some hard-hitting emotional weight.

The latter is conducted as stemming from the girls having no choice but to air out their skeletons from the closet as they wait out, surviving on the mountain, as mentioned in how the film prioritises the emotional component over action. It is essentially a participant in the area of filmmaking known as “You Think The Threat/Villain Is The Seemingly Obvious Premise We’ve Hooked The Film On, But It’s Actually The Emotional Conflict The Premise Triggers.”

Think how the horror in Ari Aster‘s Hereditary is actually the family conflict rather than the cult or the supernatural curse, or how in Frank Darabont’s The Mist, the people inside the store are the real monsters rather than the Lovecraftian otherworldly beings threatening to rip them apart because they’re being brainwashed by radical religion.

The film’s performances convey these fleeting struggles, as they shoot for naturalism and emotional punch, with furrowed brows, gritted teeth and squinting eyes. The dialogue flounders and flickers alongside, unfortunately forcing audiences through the dreaded “I Can Explain! Okay then, explain”…silence dialogue cliché.

The film also creates an unbalanced ambience for itself when it suddenly and slightly pivots in plot to make a last-minute attempt to curate some drama and thrill. Without giving too much away, the ‘twist’, clearly running to catch up with the older sibling of a plot twist displayed in Fall, does make relative narrative sense and isn’t a poor one at all, yet it feels odd when looking at the bigger picture of the film and how it derives more emphasis and intensity than the girls being stranded.

Fall 2 is looking down a divisive road in reception. Yes, it’s a great, enthralling premise which expands upon the first film’s gripping events and is working to strengthen the story of the Hunter family, with a third film taking the survival thriller aspect to a new, bigger and scarier location, and what we get of the action will make your stomach drop and vision blur. However, the wrapping of the bow negotiates the gift. The film’s performances and dialogue shrink next to the concept, and you may be left in your seats thinking a little more could have been done.

★★

In UK cinemas now / Harriet Slater, Arsema Thomas, Tom Brittney, Virginia Gardner / dir. Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig / Lionsgate / 12A

About the Author

Ros Tibbs

Editor

Ros is a film and lit graduate writing news and reviews at The People's Magazine. She also writes long-form film theory, film history, analytical or curated recommendations pieces on other platforms.

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