Two climbers, one mountain, and a script that can’t stop tying knots in itself. “Fall 2: Deadpoint” sends Jax Hunter (Harriet Slater) and Luce (Arsema Thomas) up a mountain, and once they’re stuck thousands of feet up, the film knows exactly what it wants to do to your stomach. It just doesn’t know what to do with your brain.
Trailer, via Lionsgate Movies.
The Mountain Delivers the Dizziness
Directors Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig understand height. The exposure shots are truly dizzying, the sense of scale on the rock face sells the danger, and the technical craft behind the climbing sequences is sharp. When the movie trusts its premise — two people, one wall, no easy way down — it works.
The Script Makes the Climb Too Complex
The trouble starts once Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann’s screenplay tries to be clever. This is a story that should be lean. Instead it piles on twists until the simple horror of the situation gets buried under plot mechanics. Characters exist to serve reversals rather than the other way around, and the dialogue falls flat when it should breathe.
Virginia Gardner appears as Shiloh Hunter, and Tom Brittney appears as Jon Platt. They round out a cast that never quite becomes people you’re rooting for. Sahajak Boonthanakit and Korakod Yensuk show up briefly as a Thai Barman and a Large Woman, local color that adds texture but no weight.
A Sequel That Repeats Itself
The bigger problem is familiarity. This is the same formula as the first film, staged again at a different height:
- Two climbers, isolated and exposed
- A slow reveal of the real threat
- Growing twists that strain belief
- A finale that leans on spectacle over character
None of that is fatal on its own. Formula can work if it’s executed with confidence. But “Fall 2: Deadpoint” seems aware it’s repeating itself, and that self-consciousness bleeds into the pacing, which drags in places the original never did.
Slater carries the physical demands of the role well.
Thomas gets less to do, which is a waste of what she brings to early scenes. The film’s phrase, “Are you down?”, promises a nerve rattler. What it delivers is a movie that rattles your stomach for stretches and then stalls out on its own tangled mechanics.
Where It Lands
There’s a decent, tighter movie buried in here, one that trusts height and exposure to do the work instead of piling on reversals nobody asked for. Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig know how to shoot a cliff face. They and their writers don’t know when to stop making the fall harder to follow.
“Fall 2: Deadpoint” is a mixed bag: technically confident, thin in its people, and longer on twists than on strain that earns them. It’s worth a look, occasionally gripping, and easily forgotten once the credits roll.
Score: 53 out of 100.
