Fall 2: Dead Point Is Back and the Cast Told Us Everything Including the Parts That Actually Terrified Them

By Klep Napier | Wearecritix.com

If you sat through the first Fall film with sweaty palms and a racing heart then buckle up because Fall 2: Dead Point is not here to let you breathe. I had the chance to sit down with Tom Brittney, Arsima Thomas and Harriet Slater from the cast and what they told us about making this film should tell you everything you need to know about how seriously this team takes putting you through it.

We sat down at Boundless Adventures in Purchase NY, which felt like the perfect setting for a conversation about a film that refuses to let its characters or its audience touch the ground. And if you want to see exactly what we experienced out there, go check our social media right now because we took the course ourselves and it was everything.

What Fall 2: Deadpoint Is About

After losing her fearless sister in the events of the first film, a deeply damaged Jax, played by Harriet Slater, sets out on a dangerous climb with her sister's old friend Luce, played by Arsema Thomas, to honor her memory. The two travel to Thailand to conquer a treacherous plank walk on Mount Kwan but a sudden rockslide leaves them stranded thousands of feet above the ground. In the face of vertigo-inducing drops, dark truths and cruel twists, Jax must confront her deepest fears to fight for survival and find the closure she has been searching for.

A Franchise That Earns Its Sequel

Here is what I love most about the Fall franchise. It respects you enough to not coast on what it already built. The first film worked because it committed fully to its premise and never blinked. Fall 2: Dead Point takes that same DNA and pushes it further while staying completely connected to the tissue of the original. The lore is there. The callbacks are there. The soul of what made the first one hit so hard is absolutely there.

This is a sequel that understands why people showed up in the first place and then gives them more of exactly that without ever feeling like a copy. That is harder to do than it sounds and it is something worth recognizing before we even get into the cast conversation.

14 Meters High in a Quarry in Thailand at 110 Degrees

Let us talk about what it actually took to make this film because the answer is genuinely insane.

The production made a deliberate choice to keep the green screen work to an absolute minimum. They wanted height. Real height. So they took the cast to a quarry in Thailand, got them 14 meters up in the air and kept them there for four to five hour stretches at a time in temperatures hitting 110 degrees.

Getting up to the filming location meant going one by one on a cherry picker to reach the planks where they were working. Coming down was not exactly a quick process either. The little parasols you might spot in the background of certain shots were not a costume choice. They were genuine survival equipment.

"You're like actually closer to the sun up there," I said during our conversation. Nobody disagreed.

Tom Is Afraid of Heights. Tom Was 14 Meters in the Air. Tom Is Fine Now.

This is the part of the conversation that got genuinely funny.

Tom confirmed what we had heard going in. He is afraid of heights. Genuinely. His limit, by his own description, is somewhere around benches. So the question of how a man with a fear of heights ends up 14 meters above a quarry in Thailand is a reasonable one.

The answer is that something clicked when the cameras started rolling. The fear dissolved. The character he was playing was not afraid and somehow his body followed the character's lead. His adrenaline junkie side came out during filming and by the time production wrapped it went back into hiding.

"I'm now into the stay at home where it's safe,"

he told us with complete sincerity.

Arsima on the other hand came into this with actual rock climbing experience and apparently helped with knots and belaying on set more than once. She brought her climbing shoes to the interview. Of course she did.

Both of them were clear about one thing though. The screaming you hear during the terrifying moments is not acting. It is real. It just happens to be screaming with glee rather than pure terror.

Mostly.

Watch the full interview with the Fall 2: Dead Point cast on the CritiX YouTube channel and check our social media for our own experience at Boundless Adventures in Purchase NY.

https://youtu.be/tgMAquxIAtk

The Stunt That Actually Got to Them

Without getting into spoiler territory because the trailer is already doing a lot of work on that front, there is a monkey bar sequence in Fall 2: Dead Point that came up multiple times in our conversation and not because it looks cool on screen.

It was genuinely scary to film.

Arsima described having to step off the planks onto the first monkey bar, essentially falling forward onto it, as one of the moments where the fear was real and unhidden.

The kind of scared that is actually helpful when you are playing a character in that exact situation. When the cast tells you that every time you are scared watching the film they were also scared making it, believe them.

Tom's Character and the Charm You Cannot Quite Trust

One of the more interesting dynamics in Fall 2: Dead Point is Tom's character, who enters the story with a charisma that immediately makes you want to like him and a set of motivations that keep you from fully trusting him.

Money is part of it. The job involves breaking the law and the money justifies that. But there is something else underneath the charm. A genuine enjoyment of the work. Of the people. Of the death-defying nature of what he does for a living.

"If you're taking people on a death-defying thing you might as well give them some fun," Tom explained. "Even if maybe there are some motivations we don't always know about."

That kind of layered character work is exactly what separates a great thriller sequel from a lazy one. Fall 2: Dead Point is clearly not interested in lazy.

Oh and one more thing worth mentioning. A third Fall film is already in active development with returning characters from both the first two installments and a new supporting cast. Scott Mann, who wrote the original, will write and direct the third installment. This franchise is just getting started and if Dead Point delivers the way the cast is promising, that third film cannot come soon enough.

Go See It in Theaters

Fall 2: Dead Point is in theaters now and this is one you need to see on the biggest screen you can find. The height. The scale. The sweat. None of it translates the way it should on anything smaller than a theater screen. This franchise was built for that experience and Dead Point delivers it fully.

Go see it. Take someone who hates heights. It will be the most fun you have had at the movies all year.

And before or after you do, go check our social media for our full Boundless Adventures experience in Purchase NY. We took on the course ourselves and let us just say we have a new appreciation for everything this cast went through in that quarry.

Fall 2: Dead Point. In theaters now.

Where Hollywood Meets Fandom.

Interview conducted by Klep Napier for CritiX Media. MPA-Accredited Entertainment Outlet. wearecritix.com