Vertiginous excitement
- Fall review by Alphaville
Two women get stuck on a 2,000ft-high tower and you’ll want to keep watching to see if they can get down. It’s so brilliantly filmed that you’ll swear the tower exists, even though a 60ft tower was the max that was used during filming. It’s also shot outside, in the desert, to give it extra authenticity. As a two-hander (mostly), you’d think the situation would pall, but these women are resourceful and the plot keeps moving.
There are a couple of downsides. Any climber will tell you that some of the rope work is dodgy and one of the women is initially an irritating vlogger for whom everything is cool or sick. Fortunately she soon drops this persona. All in all, a great example of how to make a low-budget film look good and really work.
2 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
STUNNING FILM FOR THOSE AFRAID OF HEIGHTS.
- Fall review by GF
I found this engrossing from start to finish as I am averse to heights and for me this was scarier than any horror film i have seen recently. The way in which the characters try and adapt to their circumstances and attempt to find a rescue plan is extremely well thought out. If you liked this try Free Solo - a recent winner of best documentary at the Oscars. It's a real life story of a climber planning to go up a sheer cliff face without a rope.
2 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Annoying cast but cool tower
- Fall review by JD
The tower for the most part is pretty cool and imo steels the show.
But then it could of been better. Firstly it utterly defies physics and there is no attempt to hide this. Also, the wind is incredibly still and the tower doesnt so much as wobble an inch. They do a great job of making something really scary - not scary at all.
The main cast are also extremely annoying. One being your typical, unlikable 'influencer' The OTT nature of the character and the constant use of her phone feels like the film was wrote by a 60year old with the thought this would appeal to the younger audience.
The other girl just feels sorry for herself right upto the end. Yeh we get it - we dont need to be reminded for 80mins non stop.
Thanks to the tower its just about watchable, if extremely silly.
And of course there is a twist, but its been done before in a similer style of film and it doesnt really have enough substance to have you thinking about it.
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Entertaining Survival Thriller
- Fall review by GI
A survivalist thriller that gets away with the sheer implausibility and ridiculousness of the story because it's all done so very well. Shunning the expense of green screen and CGi director Scott Mann opts for in camera stunts and the edits work so well you'll struggle to see any of the joins. This makes for a really tense and compelling drama even though the ending feels a little anticlimactic but is made up for with a great plot twist. Best friends, Becky (Grace Caroline Curry) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), are adrenaline junkies but after a mountaineering accident kills her husband Becky has fallen into grief stricken depression. Hunter arrives one day with a plan to snap her out of this and suggests they climb an abandoned 2000 feet high TV tower in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Becky reluctantly agrees and off they go without telling a soul where they are going or taking sufficient supplies, such as water, with them. Once you forgive this as necessary for the drama to work the film gets quickly into the suspense as once at the top the ladder gives way trapping them with apparent little hope of rescue (no phone signal you see). But like this sort of narrative often is their predicament is a puzzle for them to unravel and it's intriguing as to how they go about it. As I say there are a couple of good plot twists one of which is pretty obvious and the other a neat way of keeping the drama moving. Overall an entertaining film, not for those who don't like heights as some of the shots are very effective, but worth checking out.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Painful.
- Fall review by themadpanner
The most ridiculous ending of all time, without spoilers what can I say. I watched the uncut version on the disc and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, really 75 minutes would be enough for the script but it only takes 36 minutes to get to the top of the tower, it’s a painful experience for the rest of it.
1 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Misclassified - it's really a comedy
- Fall review by horacethefrog
Almost nothing that happens to these two irritating people is credible. Many reviewers wax lyrical about the camera work but that's all for nothing if the story doesn't hang together. About half-way in the list of absurd mishaps had become so long as to be comic to the extent it gets an extra star for unintentional humour. The ending is the final nail in the coffin of this miserable piece of cinema.
0 out of 1 members found this review helpful.