Even if one can look past a bizarre drug-smuggling angle and a sudden, unbelievable call to courage that changes our heroine’s perspective from grieving to that of an adventure-seeking adrenaline junkie, chances are one would still deem Fall 2: Deadpoint an inferior sequel.

The first Fall (2022) kept its head straight, even at moments when plot points pushed it towards B-grade made-for-TV movie territory. In that film, Shiloh Hunter (Virginia Gardner) and her friend Becky Connor (Grace Caroline Currey) get stranded on the top of a 2,000-foot tall decommissioned television broadcasting tower that is about to be demolished.

In the sequel, Shiloh’s grieving sister Jax Hunter (Harriet Slater) is cajoled by Shiloh’s friend Luce (Arsema Thomas) to walk the planks on the side of Mount Kwan in Thailand, to see a dragon statue that can eat one’s fears.

The mountain, as we see in the opening sequence, is especially dangerous at this time of the year. Rain, rockslides and a barely two-foot long plank held up by rusted iron bars that are wedged into the mountain spell all but certain death. Thankfully, the young women have a decent-looking British man, Jon (Tom Brittney), to take them up the mountain.

Despite the novelty of the premise, Fall 2 joins the seen-it-all-but-better club

Soon, Jon appears to fall to his death, the planks break off and their backpack with the radio is left dangling on an iron bar far from Jax and Luce’s reach. Left stranded on a plank that is cut off from both sides, secrets are revealed and fears are eventually confronted in the screenplay by Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank, who also wrote the script of the first film.

Yet, despite a lean 97-minute runtime (the first film had 10 more minutes to spare for character development), one feels that something is amiss.

Jax is a far less interesting character than her dead sister Shiloh — a social media influencer. A revelatory twist on Luce and Jon also doesn’t help much, if at all. However, the fentanyl-smuggling angle is the worst creative decision the writers make — it takes you out of the movie instantly and throws Fall 2 into a deadly fall of its own, with no miraculous last-minute rescues to save itself.

Mann, who also directed the first movie, will return to direct the follow-up — yes, there is a third part coming. However, he kept the first film believable. Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig — the directors of the excellent Ethan Hawke-starrer Predestination, Jigsaw and Winchester — direct here without a personality. One somehow feels that, despite the novelty of the premise (or whatever is left of that novelty), Fall 2 joins the seen-it-all-but-better club.

Playing in cinemas across Pakistan, Fall 2: Deadpoint is released by Lionsgate and HKC, and carries a PG-13 rating. Carrying a more convincing plot would have made much more sense

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 20th, 2026