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Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.21 “Prisoner of Love”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

Let’s go to prison!  Is Freddy coming?

Episode 2.21 “Prisoner of Love”

(Dir by Richard T. Schor, originally aired on March 4th, 1990)

A flakey Episcopalian named Father Jarvis (Vincent Baggetta) is appointed the new chaplain of Springwood Prison.  Jarvis has just returned from Haiti and has a rather liberal outlook towards prison reform.  When he falls in love with Death Row prisoner Violet (Maria Richwine), he gives her a Haitian drug that will make it appear as if she’s died.  He promises her that he will dig her up from the prison graveyard before she suffocates.  Unfortunately, Jarvis oversleeps and Violet suffocates in her coffin.

Still, another prisoner named Brenda (Tara Buckman) overheard Jarvis talking to Violet and she decides that she wants the same drug.  Jarvis gives it to her but it turns out that Jarvis is also being haunted by the ghost of Violet.  Violet says that she can’t move on until Brenda forgives her for killing Brenda’s boyfriend.  Brenda finds herself being held captive by the crazed Father Jarvis.

This episode was the second-to-late for Freddy’s Nightmares and, unfortunately, it’s not very good.  Between the histrionic acting and the predictable plot, this story really makes you wish that Freddy was doing something more than just introducing it.  As it was, this episode really reminded me of how limiting the show’s format was.  Whenever something scary happens, it’s always a given that it will turn out to be a dream.  It’s predictable and a little bit dull, unless it’s one of the rare episodes in which Freddy actually played a role in the story.

Next week, we will finish up Freddy’s Nightmares!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.4 “The Naked and the Dead”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Daily Motion.

Life is getting dark in Boston!

Episode 4.4 “The Naked and the Dead”

(Dir by Leo Penn, originally aired on October 30th, 1985)

This episode opens with Dr. Craig in an even worse mood than usual.  There’s two newspapers in Boston and they each have a totally different weather forecast.  One says that the day is going to be warm and sunny.  The other says to expect rain.  How is Dr. Craig supposed to know whether or not take an umbrella to the hospital!?  Ellen, meanwhile, is preparing for Stephen’s funeral, which is going to be held later in the day.

Yes, Dr. Craig does go to the hospital on the day of his son’s funeral.  He says that he has no choice because his patients need him but it’s obvious that the hospital is his way of avoiding the grief and guilt that he feels over the death of his son.  Ellen worries about whether or not Stephen will be buried in a comfortable suit.  Dr. Craig yells at a post-op patient for smoking and eating too much.  They’re both dealing with their sadness.

Dr. Westphall, meanwhile, deals with his nonstop depression by coming up with new (and impractical) community projects for the hospital.  In this episode, he leaves Tommy with a babysitter so that he can try to persuade the Board of Directors to fund his latest project, a clinic devoted to battling malnutrition.  The Board turns him down.  Westphall returns home a depressed.  That’s nothing new.  Westphall is always depressed.  That said, this was the first episode in which I really felt as if I understood Westphall’s depression.  Westphall feels guilty because, for all of his medical training, he still doesn’t understand his son’s autism.  So, instead of dealing with Tommy, Westphall throws himself into the hospital.  He’s really not that much different from Dr. Craig.

While that’s going on, Bobby hooks up with a physical therapist at the hospital.  Nurse Lucy (Jennifer Savidge) steals his scrubs and we get the sight of a half-naked Mark Harmon running through the hospital.  Meanwhile, an aspiring teenage photographer (Robert Romanus — DAMONE FROM FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH!) is beaten up when he sells some bad drugs to the other inhabitants of the group home where he lives.  The photographer is dead by the end of the episode.  It’s just that type of day.

This episode ends with Dr. Craig and his wife going to the funeral.  It’s raining, of course.

Wow, what a depressing episode!  Fortunately, the strong ensemble cast kept things bearable, even though there wasn’t much happiness to be found over the course of the hour.  Still, I worry about Dr. Craig.  He really does seem like he’s just a few days away from snapping.  Hopefully, he’ll express his grief at some point.  It’s not good to hold all that in.  We know there’s a bar near the hospital and Dr. Craig seems like he’s on the verge of becoming a regular.

Are things going to continue to get dark or is Boston going to see happier day?  We’ll find out next week!

Brad reviews 90210 SHARK ATTACK (2014)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

There are bad movies, there are worse movies, and then there are the worst possible movies. 90210 SHARK ATTACK just may be the worst of the worst.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the plot, but it revolves around a group of horny college students who are spending the weekend in a beautiful mansion in Beverly Hills. They’re there for an Oceanic Anthropology class, where they’ll be working on special projects under the supervision of their scheming professor, Pamela Vantzen (Donna Wilkes). Unknown to the rest of the students, Alyssa (Stephanie Shemanski) is in possession of a cursed shark tooth necklace, and when she gets excited, bad things tend to happen.  

I knew I was in trouble when the movie opened on a Beverly Hills trolley car with Christmas decorations on it, signs like “Deck the Hills” and various artwork of Christmas presents. The movie is set during the summer. I also kept wondering how they would encounter sharks since the mansion they’re staying in is “miles away from the ocean,” but it turns out that the filmmakers didn’t care about this issue, so I soon stopped worrying about it myself. What this movie does have is a loop of stock footage that includes Beverly Hills, CGI sharks, a beach, and an aquarium that it cuts back to time after time. Between the extensive credit sequences and the stock footage, I would guess the actual actors are not on the screen more than 45 minutes of the entire 75-minute runtime.   

It doesn’t get much better when the actors are on the screen. I watched this because Donna Wilkes is in it. I had recently watched her in JAWS 2, and I remember her back in the ‘80’s in the enjoyable, low-budget exploitation film ANGEL (“High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood Hooker by Night”). She doesn’t have anything to work with here, and neither do the other actors. The characters and dialogue are as ridiculous as you would expect, but in a boring way, not a fun way. So much time is spent watching them walk from room to room, or across the yard, or taking a shower, or gallivanting in the pool. I couldn’t even enjoy the shower scenes, because they only focused on the men!

When it’s all said and done, there’s very little time left for the sharks. And based on our movie, that’s not a big issue. Our CGI shark gets less than 30 seconds for the entire film. This part is sad, because the one thing that I did find ridiculously fun in a “wtf” kind of way is when the demonic ghost-shark first appears at about the 47-minute mark.

At the end of the day, I blame director David DeCoteau for this mess. I’ve been watching some of his “Wrong” series of Lifetime TV movies with the #MondayMania live tweet group. Those movies aren’t high art, but they are fun, campy thrillers, so I know he can make an enjoyable film. At the end of the day, I didn’t expect something great, but I did expect him to try to entertain us. Apparently, that was too much to ask!  

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.14 “The Snow Queen: Part Two”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the story of the snow queen comes to a close.

Episode 1.14 “The Snow Queen: Part Two”

(Dir by Richard Colla, originally aired on March 30th, 1985)

The second part of The Snow Queen saga opens with a stylish action sequence.  As Huey Lewis sings I Want A New Drug on the soundtrack, we watch as both Molinas (Dennis Franz) and Hunter approach, from opposite sides, the boat where Sally LaPone is hiding out with one of her friends.  Molinas is approaching the boat so that he can murder Sally for the mob bosses in New York.  Hunter, on the other hand, is approaching the boat to try to save Sally’s life.  The guards that surround the boat have no idea what’s going on and they end up getting into a gunfight with both Molinas and Hunter.  Molinas, being the sleaze that he is, pretends that he drew his gun to help Hunter as opposed to killing Sally.

Meanwhile, at a club, a smitten Vic Terranova (Dennis Farina) pushes McCall, who is working undercover, to take the stage.  Shots of McCall performing are mixed with shots of Molinas and Hunter shooting people and Sally once again escaping.

Molinas wants to kill Sally while McCall wants to use Sally’s testimony to take down Terranova and his drug-fueled empire.  Hunter wants to stop Molinas from killing anyone else and Sally just wants to be left alone.  The episode does a good job of switching from one character to the next, capturing the desperation of everyone involved.  One especially memorable sequence features Dennis Franz showing Sally’s pictures to a group of teenagers outside of a punk club.  Just from the reactions of Franz and the punks, one gets the feeling that the sequence wasn’t actually scripted.  There’s a gritty authenticity to the action in this episode and it makes for compelling viewing.

Of course, this is an episode of Hunter so everything does eventually lead to another shoot out.  Both Vic and Molinas go down in a hail of bullets and it’s actually kind of a shame.  Both Farina and Franz did such a good job in these two episodes that it’s unfortunate that their characters won’t be able to return in the future.  Franz, in particular, was brilliantly sleazy as the loathsome Molinas.  If only he hadn’t pulled that gun on Hunter, Molinas could have been one of those recurring villains that audiences would love to hate.

Still, all things come to an end and, since this is Hunter, they end in gunfire instead of arrests.  Sally survives but the final shot of the episode reveals that she’s been traumatized beyond belief by everything she’s seen and experienced.  McCall’s hope was that Sally would get immunity in return for testifying against Vic.  But, with Vic dead, Sally really doesn’t have any leverage that she could use to avoid jail.

Seriously, this was a dark episode!  But it was a compelling one and I’m glad that, for once, Hunter showed that not everyone just shrug off violence and move on.  Not everyone is Rick Hunter.

Retro Television Review: Alexander The Great (dir by Phil Karlson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  This Thursdays, I will be reviewing Alexander The Great, which was filmed in 1963 but didn’t air on CBS until 1968.  The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, we take a look at William Shatner and Adam West in Alexander The Great, a pilot that never became a series.

Episode 1.1 “Alexander The Great”

(Dir by Phil Karlson, originally aired on January 26th, 1968)

Greek leader Alexander the Great (a very blonde William Shatner) is determined to defeat the forces of King Darius and conquer all of Persia.  But, before he can fight his latest battle, he has to rescue his kidnapped best friend Cleander (Adam West), calm the nerves of his mentor Antigonus (Joseph Cotten), and deal with two insubordinate generals (John Cassavetes and Simon Oakland).  Only then will Alexander be ready to defeat the fearsome, beheading-obsessed Persian general, Memmon (Cliff Osmond, wearing a truly horrifying wig and fake beard).

This hour-long episode features a lot of talking, a lot of scheming, and one good battle scene.  Unfortunately, that good battle scenes becomes a lot less impressive once you discover that it was lifted from the 1959 film, The Giant of Marathon.  As for the scheming, it’s not really a surprise when the generals plays by Cassavetes and Oakland reveal that they’re planning on assassinating Alexander during the battle.  Both characters are so obviously villainous that their very presence amongst the ranks will lead most viewers to doubt whether Alexander is truly the tactical genius that everyone seems to think he is.

For most viewers, the main appeal of Alexander the Great will be the chance to see William Shatner and Adam West playing best friends.  This pilot was made before Shatner was cast as Captain Kirk and West as Batman.  While West gives a relatively sober performance as Cleander, Shatner shows that he had all of his famous acting tics long before he boarded the Enterprise.  Shatner delivers every line as if he’s expecting to be handed an Emmy at any moment.  The halting cadence is present.  The overly dramatic punctuation is present.  The habit of telegraphing every line and emotion by moving his head is present.  This is the type of performance that feels more like William Shatner imitating himself than actually trying to play a character.  Today, we’re all used to William Shatner poking fun at his reputation so it’s always a bit jarring to watch something like Alexander the Great and see just how seriously Shatner used to take himself.

Alexander the Great ends with Alexander achieving victory over both Memmon and his own duplicitous generals.  He buries Antigonous, who was earlier murdered by the mutineers.  And then, with a big smile on his face, Alexander hopes on his horse and rides off with Cleander and his surviving generals.  Watching Shatner riding his horse, it becomes obvious that, had this pilot become a show, it would have been a western that just happened to take place in ancient Greece and which featured togas and mini-skirts instead of chaps and hats.

This pilot was shot in 1963 but it was rejected by the network and shelved.  In 1968, when West was Batman and Shatner was Kirk, the pilot was taken out of storage and aired as an episode of an anthology show.  Needless to say, it didn’t lead to a series.  Adam West later poked fun at the pilot in his autobiography, saying that it was the greatest waste of an hour ever made.  I think West was a bit too hard on the pilot.  It’s not terrible as much as it’s just bland.  No production featuring not only Shatner and West but also Joseph Cotten, Simon Oakland, and John Cassavetes has a right to be this mild.

One does wonder how, if the pilot had become a series, it would have deal with Alexander eventually drinking himself to death.  Imagine what Shatner and West could have done with that!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.10 “Out of the Past”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

After last week’s trip to “the future,” this episode returns to 1988.

Episode 4.10 “Out of the Past”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on December 7th, 1988)

As a show, 1st & Ten has a weird habit of introducing new characters and pretending as if they’ve always been around even if they’ve never been seen or even mentioned before.  In this episode, we meet Coleman King (Richard Lawson), the team’s veteran running back who fears that he’s on the verge of being dropped from the Bulls.  Coleman is also an old friend of TD Parker’s (O.J. Simpson).

TD is conflicted.  He knows that Coleman is past his prime.  The Bulls are on the verge of signing a new running back and, when they do, TD knows that he’s probably going to have to cut Colman from the team.  As a former player, TD knows how painful it is when your professional career is murdered and no one is held responsible for it.  Complicating matters is the clear attraction between TD and Coleman’s wife, Della (Vanessa Bell Callaway).

While TD tries to figure out how to protect both the team and Coleman, Ernie Denardo runs into his ex-girlfriend, Brenda (Shannon Wilcox), at a bar.  Brenda has some scary people after her because of her unpaid gambling debts.  She tells Denardo that she has money on the next Bulls game.  If the Bulls win by more than ten, her debt will be paid off and then she and Denardo can be together.

The next day, the Bulls are on the verge of winning by 9.  With only a few seconds left in the game, Denardo has the team kick a field goal so that they can win by 12.  Denardo returns to Brenda’s apartment and discovers that she’s gone.  It was all a scam, hatched by Brenda and her real boyfriend.

In tears, Denardo tells TD that he has to quit as coach of the Bulls.

TD argues that Denardo didn’t do anything wrong because he didn’t have money on the game.  TD points out that the field goal unit needed the practice and that the Bulls need as many points as possible to clinch home field advantage in the playoffs.  The episode ends with TD embracing the sobbing Denardo.  Awwww!  Is there nothing an OJ Simpson pep talk can’t fix?

After last week’s bizarre episode, this was a traditional 1st & Ten episode.  This episode served as a reminder of just how bland OJ Simpson was as an actor.  That said, Reid Shelton did a good job as the grief-stricken Denardo and the gambling subplot at least did have a few interesting twists.  By the standards of 1st & Ten, that makes this episode a success.

Shark Week Review: Avalanche Sharks (dir by Scott D. Wheeler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2012’s Avalanche Sharks takes place during Spring Break.

Woo hoo!  SPRIIIIIIIIING BREAAAAAAAK!  If there’s anything that I truly miss about college, it’s Spring Break!  What do you think about when you think about Spring Break?  You think about the sun,  You think about the days and the nights spent lazily lounging in a bikini.  You think about the binge-drinking and the drug-taking and one night stands that you regret the next morning and the realization that you’re only young once.

Avalanche Sharks has all of that.  It also has a lot of snow and also sharks.

SHARK BREAK!  Woo hoo!

These aren’t any old sharks.  These are ghost sharks that swim around in the snow and which pop out to eat the employees and guests of a ski resort.  You may be asking yourself how a shark can swim in the snow and I’m not totally sure myself.  It probably helps that they’re ghost sharks and not living sharks.  Still, it seems like even a ghost shark would prefer the ocean.  The film suggests that the sharks are the result of an ancient curse.  It also suggests that the sharks are the result of global warming.  I’m going to guess that it’s a combination.  The ancient curse was reactivated by global warming.  Either that or the ghost sharks escaped from a lab and there’s been a massive cover-up to try to keep people from discovering the truth.  But, seriously, when has that ever happened?

The movie features the usual collection of characters whose names you will struggle to remember after the movie ends.  (I struggled to remember them even before the movie ended.)  It’s Spring Break, after all!  Why go to the beach when you can just go to a ski resort and apparently spend several days sitting in a jacuzzi?  The jacuzzi is a major location in this film and it’s also the film’s excuse to feature bikinis.  Myself, I couldn’t help but notice that the characters who got in the jacuzzi apparently never got out, even to sleep.  72 hours in a jacuzzi is something you might do to win a car but it’s not necessarily a good idea when there are ghost sharks around.

“You are the sexiest Marine biologist I know,” one guy says at one point and that’s pretty much sets the standard for the film’s dialogue.  The movie is quickly divided between those who know about the avalanche sharks and those who don’t but, to the film’s credit, knowledge does not equal safety.  Just about anyone can and will get eaten by the sharks.  Some of the gore is a bit icky.  The start of the film features a skier suffering a rather serious injury and I briefly had to hide my eyes.  That said, it also appears that the gore budget was used up early because the later effects aren’t quite as impressive.  What is impressive is the performance of James Ouimet as crazy old Duffy.  Duffy is the one who tells everyone that they’re doomed.  He seeks revenge after losing his dog to the sharks.  “LUNA!” he yells and you totally buy it.

As my friend Jim put it, this is a film the defies a traditional rating.  Yes, it would be easy to dismiss it as being another shark movie but, at the same time, it’s so stupidly entertaining that you can’t help but watch.  Someone somewhere once said, “Give them snow sharks!” and this film delivered.  And for that, I say thank you.

 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 8.4 “Ace Meets the Champ/Why Justin Can’t Read/Call Me a Doctor”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Come aboard, we’re expecting you!

Episode 8.4 “Ace Meets the Champ/Why Justin Can’t Read/Call Me a Doctor”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on October 6th, 1994)

Malcolm Bosworth (James Noble) boards the ship with his son (Dick Billingsley) and his son’s tutor (Jeannie Wilson).  When both the tutor and Doc Bricker suggest that his son might be struggling academically because he’s dyslexic, Malcolm replies, “My son’s not retarded!”  Booooo, Malcolm, booooo!  In Malcolm’s defense, he comes to see the error of his ways but still, booooo!

Walter Milner (Louis Giambalvo) is a furniture salesman who tells Margo Bush (Tovah Feldshuh) that he’s a doctor.  Margo’s mother (Doris Roberts) really wants her daughter to marry a doctor.  Wow, I bet that will lead to some wacky complications!

Those two stories are both well-handled and feature some likable performances.  James Noble makes Malcolm into a sympathetic figure, even if he is totally incorrect about dyslexia.  But neither one of those stories is the main event.

The main event is Ace and Isaac boxing Ernie Jordan (Dick Butkus).  Ernie is a professional boxer.  Ace and Isaac are not.  Ernie was originally scheduled to take part in an exhibition match for charity but, when his opponent gets sick, it looks like the children’s hospital will just have to close.  Ernie’s publicist, Gaylan (Jennifer Holmes), is a former girlfriend of Ace’s.  She left Ace because she felt he was irresponsible.  Isaac and Gopher decide that the best way for Ace to prove that he isn’t irresponsible would be for him to volunteer to fight a professional boxer.  Ace agrees.  After Isaac writes a poem ridiculing the champ, Ernie declares that he’ll fight both Isaac and Ace at the same time.

Wow, sounds like Ace and Isaac are in a lot of trouble!  Fortunately, for them, Ernie is a nice guy and he throws the fight and pretends to get knocked out.  The children’s hospital is saved, Ernie’s reputation is probably ruined, and Ace proves …. well, I don’t know what Ace proves.  Ace’s goal is to show that he’s not just a rich kid with an easy job but that’s a little bit difficult because he is a rich kid with an easy job.  Ace is the Jack Schlossberg of The Love Boat, just with better hair.  Still, Ace gets a girlfriend for the final five minutes or so of the episode so that’s a good thing.

This episode was pleasant, though it’s hard not to feel that Gopher would have been a more amusing opponent for Ernie Jordan.  Pat Klous still seems to be struggling to fit in with the rest of the cast as Judy.  Still, Isaac’s brief Mohammad Ali impersonation made me smile and Ted McGinley’s hair was perfect.  With this episode, The Love Boat shows its age a little but luckily, our crew is still capable of delivering an enjoyable if not exactly memorable cruse.

 

Brad reviews FALL (2022)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I’ve never been that afraid of heights, but you’ll never catch me climbing up the side of a mountain or jumping out of a plane. I don’t have that daredevil gene that makes me want to do stuff like that. Back in 2023, our family visited Yellowstone, so we took a ride on the Beartooth Highway that runs through the Rocky Mountains in parts of Wyoming and Montana. As I was driving that gorgeous roadway, I will admit that I became quite “weak in the knees” a few times as I drove near some very steep edges. The more I think about it, I don’t really like heights that much, but I’m willing to deal with them as long as the payoff is awesome and the risk isn’t too crazy.

FALL is one of those movies that takes whatever fear of heights may be lurking beneath our surfaces and forces us to deal with them from the comforts of our own living rooms! I kept looking at my wife because it was hard for me to look at the screen, and my wife kept telling me her palms were sweating. This lady spent a decade as a flight medic, but she was still struggling.

The premise is about as simple as it gets. A year after a devastating mountain climbing tragedy, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) reluctantly agrees to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot television tower with her thrill-seeking, social-media obsessed best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner). Once they reach the top, the ladder collapses, leaving them stranded 200 stories above the desert with almost no supplies, no way to call for help, and only some vultures for company. This all happens in the first 30 minutes. For the remainder of the film’s 107-minute running time, the ladies will have to do whatever they can to survive.

The film succeeds because it understands exactly what it wants to be. This isn’t some deep character study about a person’s quest for the rediscovery of peace and happiness after unimaginable pain and suffering. No, this is all about creating tension, and sometimes nauseating tension at that. Every rusty rung and loose screw on the way up foreshadows the characters’ fate. Once they’re stuck at the tiny platform at the top, the camera constantly looks over the edge, forcing us to experience the mind-blowing heights and the growing desperation right alongside the characters. These are the scenes where I had to keep looking away to maintain my own sanity!

As you might imagine, this isn’t the most realistic movie in the world. It’s one of those movies that keeps setting you up to think something good is just about to happen only for things to continue to get worse. Then again, as an audience we know when watching these types of movies that things have to keep going wrong or the movie would be over way too soon. FALL definitely works best if you just go along for the tense ride, without thinking too much about some of the finer points. From that standpoint, I was able to really enjoy the film, even when some of the twists and turns along the way threatened to go too far.

I wasn’t really familiar with their prior work, but Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner do fine jobs in the lead roles. As the grief-stricken Becky, Currey does the heavy lifting as we see her go from being completely broken, to almost giving up hope, before finally finding the courage and resilience to battle for survival. As the free-spirited, certifiably insane Hunter, Gardner has plenty of enthusiasm and charisma. Once they’re stuck at the top, she also shows a lot of bravery as well. The movie spends almost its entire runtime with these two actresses, so their chemistry has to work, and it does. I’ve always liked Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and it was nice seeing him as Becky’s dad, even though it’s a small role.

One of the best things about movies is that they have the ability to take us places we would never go on our own. Not in a million years would I ever climb the rock cliff of a mountain or a 2000-foot TV tower. But FALL took me up that tower and made me feel something. It made me uncomfortable, it made me a little sick, and it made my hands sweat… and I liked it. And all from the comfort of my own living room.