Fall hits some exhilarating B-movie heights

You’ve seen those videos on social media. Click-driven lunatics dangling off the side of cliffs, sticking their tongues out at the camera, ripping a big “whoooooo!” You grimace, maybe even groan, then share it yourself with a proper “oh, hell no!”

That’s what Fall is. Fall is “Oh, Hell No: The Movie,” and it’s as addictive as any of those sickening videos you immediately showed to someone on your phone. It is to this critic’s great regret that he saw it at home, and not with a packed theater shouting “uh-uh!” back at the screen. But even on the couch, with the ability to hit pause, it reaches heights (ha!) of quintessential B-movie greatness, causing exactly the kind of discomfort that elicits verbal rebukes.

Fall stars Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, a (former) mountain climber, still in mourning after her husband fell to his death before her eyes. Virginia Gardner (also there that day) is Hunter, a daredevil YouTuber who, nearly one year after the accident, is determined to get her pal back on her feet.

Hunter has scoped out a decommissioned TV tower in the middle of nowhere—basically a giant, rusting ladder to nowhere. It’s over twice the height of the Eiffel Tower, and Hunter has convinced Becky to climb up, shoot some Instagrams, scatter the dead husband’s ashes, and live, truly live.

It doesn’t take long for things to go horribly wrong. Decked out in story-relevant padded bras and tank tops (“tits for clicks!” Hunter exclaims, in what’s not really a rhyme) the two young women inch their way to the top, then find themselves trapped over 2,000 feet in the air when the ladder collapses. It’s nothing but a smooth pole all the way down, their cellphones don’t work, they don’t have much water, and they’ve also gotta take a whizz. What’s a gal to do?!?

Screenwriters Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann (the latter of whom also directed) pull task after task out of thin air, each of which seems, at first, to be their salvation. (Many of them also involve removing their socks and shoes, or other other articles of clothing, for story purposes. What a picture!) It’s a terrific example of the Cinema of Aggravation: they gotta accomplish X, but before they can do that, they must do Y, but as that’s happening Z comes out of nowhere to cause a fuss.

Not only does every attempt fail to get them down from atop this giant stupid pole, it fails in the most heartbreaking way. Each cruel twist one-ups the previous, like watching a soccer team elegantly set up a shot just to have it blocked by a miraculous goaltender. It’s hilarious. There are also vultures that keep circling, eager to peck at a gash on Becky’s leg bleeding through her absurdly tight pants.

Fall is produced by, among others, two righteous showmen named James Harris and Mark Lane who, in 2017, brought us another gloriously idiotic survival movie, 47 Meters Down. If you recall, that film sent two attractive young women (also in pursuit of Instagram pics) to the bottom of the sea, surrounded by a shark all hopped-up on chum. Picture Harris and Lane, feet on the desk, cigars in their mouth. “Okay, we sent two beauties down low, what to do now?” “I got it! Send ‘em up high!” “Brilliant! You want Thai?” “Nah, I had Thai yesterday.” “But you love Thai!” “Okay, you want to order Thai, let’s order Thai, I’m not gonna make a fuss.”

Yuks aside, Fall really is enjoyable work— if you let it be. There are some things that don’t fully make sense. (My wife was sure to catalogue them as we watched the film.) If Hunter is such an accomplished adventurer, why is she wearing Converse sneakers? It gets cold in the desert; wouldn’t they freeze at night? Surely there’s no way a tower like that uses just a regular lightbulb—and who the hell changes the lightbulbs up there? And what normal person gives a “just be you!” pep talk to a YouTuber after days of no food or water atop a giant pole in the middle of nowhere?

The film’s two leads certainly win points for effort, but their attempts to sell its few moments of heavy drama draw sniggers. Virginia Gardner has a bit of a Reese Witherspoon thing going on, despite the fact that it feels like the character maybe called for more of a “roller derby look.” Whether this makes for some refreshingly unorthodox casting or feels like a round peg/square hole situation is open for debate. What’s really surprising is the very final decision a character makes just before the movie ends, which no one will see coming, especially with the film’s PG-13 rating. But for a crowd looking to have rowdy fun—one that gets this kind of thing on opening weekend—Fall is gonna make them go nuts.