Every now and then, a trailer comes along and just knocks you for six.
It hasn't happened to me for a while, the last time I was genuinely chilled by a trailer was Alex Garland's Men, where it turned out every character in his strange horror spectacle would be played by Rory Kinnear, but for the last time I genuinely found myself short of breath at the end of a trailer, you have to go back to all-round scare-a-thon Hereditary.
That was until I watched the trailer for Fall.
Fall stars Shazam!'s Grace Caroline Currey and Marvel's Runaways Virginia Gardener as Becky and Hunter, two best friends and absolutely devoted climbers. Becky is still recovering from the loss of her boyfriend, who fell from a great height after his piton (the spike, wedge, or peg that is driven into the rock to act as support) loses its hold.
Given Becky was up there with him, naturally, she takes a rather long hiatus from climbing, but she is tempted back when Hunter demands she accompany her as they climb an abandoned 2,000 foot radio tower in the middle of the desert.
Hunter's plea comes accompanied by a bit of emotional blackmail, a bid for the old Becky to come back, something which Becky is quick to reject and then, eventually, accept.
They set off on the climb. Trouble is, the tower is not only abandoned but rather uncared for and beset by rust. You can imagine the rest and it's on show in the trailer below:
I'm not scared of heights, but the idea of being pinned, 2,000 feet in the air, with no mobile phone reception, no way down and a tower slowly collapsing around you, that's terrifying.
A tried and tested formula...
Fall is produced behind the team behind 47 Meters Down, who are masters of this kind of genre flick.
In 47 Meters Down, two young sisters, Mandy Moore's Lisa and Claire Holt's Kate, are cage diving in Mexico, when the winch system holding the cage breaks and the cage plummets to the ocean floor. Now pinned inside the cage, the pair must find a way to escape, with their air supplies running low and great white sharks stalking nearby.
You can see the team have applied the same formula to Fall, but somehow, the spectacle of sharks circling, a trope seen so often throughout cinema, seems less threatening than the prospect of plummeted 2,000 feet to your death.
Lots of movies in recent times, particularly in horror, have been spun from the idea of its key characters being pinned inside and forced to get out somehow. Whether that's any number of the Saw movies or Crawl, where Kaya Scodelario faced down a massive alligator in her flooded home, and it's an effective plot device. I just can't remember being this scared.
Doing your job too well?
Trailers are designed to entice and excite, to demand viewers see the full thing. The trouble with Fall's new promo is its done its job too well. Can I face the thought of sitting through almost two hours of heart-in-mouth, air-sucking trauma? At the moment, probably not.
The movie is out on August 12, maybe I'll change my mind by then, or at least make sure I sit in the front row of theater.
Fall is released into theaters on August 12.
