Fall 2: Deadpoint Review: Dizzying Thrills Save Sequel From Melodramatic Drop-Off

Fall 2: Deadpoint delivers more of the nail-biting thrills that powered the original, but its less grounded tone undercuts the tension. Published Sep 3, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT George is a film critic and journalist with over nine years of experience in the entertainment industry. Beginning as the Co-Creator and Co-Editor of Star Wars Holocron, the most followed Star Wars fan account on Twitter/X, George went on to develop The HoloFiles, a movie and television-focused website with his brother and writing partner Josh. A member of the Hollywood Creative Alliance, Chicago Indie Critics, Online Film and Television Association, and the Internet Film Critic Society, George has covered major industry events as credentialed media, including D23, CinemaCon, SXSW, Fantastic Fest, Star Wars Celebration, Tribeca Festival, and more. He also regularly writes reviews and contributes articles to ScreenAnarchy, BRWC, Film Obsessive, TV Obsessive, and Under the Radar. George's work has been featured in various esteemed publications, including the BBC, Associated Press, Forbes, and The New York Times. To some, there are few things scarier than looking down upon a seemingly endless distance to the ground. In 2022, filmmaker Scott Mann took advantage of this primal fear and used it as the basis for Fall, a word-of-mouth-hit survival thriller, able to immerse audiences in the tension and dread its main characters experience as they are stranded atop a 2,000-foot radio tower with no way down. A few years later, the Spierig brothers, known for their work on Daybreakers and Jigsaw, try their hand at a minimalist movie with maximalist stakes for its protagonists that, while tense and dizzying in equal measure, comes up short of its predecessor. Fall 2: Deadpoint follows Jax (Harriet Slater), the older sister of Shiloh (Virigina Gardner), who fell to her death in the previous film. At the suggestion of Shiloh’s daring friend Lace (Arsema Thomas), Jax agrees to honor her sister by embarking on a dangerous plank walk on the side of Mount Kwan in Thailand known as the Devil’s Elbow. Things go wrong for the two climbers when an earthquake causes a rockslide that leaves them stranded over 3,000 feet in the air. Fall 2: Deadpoint Thrills With Dizzying, Nail-Biting Suspense Tackling a sequel to the buzzy Fall is an unenviable task. Putting aside the sheer raw quality of the original, sequels of genre films are expected to go bigger and be better. But how does one create a sequel to a film so refreshingly simple in execution? For starters, screenwriters Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank strand their protagonists even further in the air, and pit them against even more treacherous terrain and weather. On paper, this sounds like a rather trite idea for a sequel, but the Spierig Brothers deliver enough craft and technical skill behind the camera to make the lack of novelty easier to overlook. Although occasionally hindered by weak visual effects, which break the suspension of belief by making it far too clear that the real-life locations are not where the actors filmed the movie, Fall 2: Deadpoint excels with the same kind of nail-biting, vertiginous thrills that made its predecessor so effective. Anyone with even a moderate fear of heights is likely to be driven to nausea watching the death-defying elevation the characters find themselves at. This is particularly salient in certain point-of-view shots and with bursts of handheld camerawork that amplify the film’s immersiveness. Even if only for a brief moment, they make one feel as if they, too, are stranded in an impossible dilemma. Fall 2’s Tonal Shift Comes At A Cost Before Jax and Luce find themselves stranded at 3,000 feet, Fall 2 disjointedly finds an entry point into a seemingly impossible sequel. The fallout of Shiloh’s death, the shockwaves this sent through social media due to her celebrity status, and the uniting of two key figures in her life suffers from jagged pacing, especially given one knows where all this set-up is leading. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly clear the sequel has undergone a tonal shift from the original. Whereas Fall was somewhat grounded (pun intended) in its characterizations, its sequel leans more into melodrama. In other terms, it plays like a breezy, paperback thriller one picks up at the airport has been blended with a daytime soap opera. At times, the pivot to a pulpier tone threatens to undermine the suspense of the story. And, much like a soap opera, Fall 2: Deadpoint features some admittedly compelling twists and turns that alter the way in which audiences understand the characters. But also like a soap opera, the movie pains with drab dialogue, thinly developed characters, and leaps in logic that range from questionable to comical. Leading actresses Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas make somewhat interesting protagonists out of Jax and Luce respectively, although sharp writing around their evolving relationship would have afforded them more meaty material to work with. At times, the pivot to a pulpier tone threatens to undermine the suspense of the story. Just when one is made to feel as if they are side-by-side with Jax and Luce up this high, a line of dialogue or a baffling decision elicits a groan or a chuckle and, in turn, pulls one out of the film. Despite these hiccups, Fall 2 deserves credit for being a sequel that doesn’t remake its predecessor beat-for-beat. The two films share similar premises, and understandably so, but the Spierig Brothers’ movie uses the conclusion of the first film as the set-up for theirs, rendering it more than another survivalist thriller and transitioning it into more intriguing dramatic territory. The conclusion of this story further evolves the franchise from survivalist thriller to character-based, psychological thriller. Even with its missteps, the finale admittedly intrigues with what it teases for a third film, which, should Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank have their way, could be on the horizon sooner rather than later. Fall 2: Deadpoint releases in theaters on Wednesday, September 2. Fall 2: Deadpoint 6/10 Release Date September 2, 2026 Runtime 97 Minutes Director Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig Writers Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann Producers Christian Mercuri, David Haring, Mark Lane, James Harris, Scott Mann Prequel(s) Fall Cast