Fall 2: Deadpoint (2026) Review: A Bigger, Crueler Climb

The setup is elegantly simple, almost to a fault. Jax (Harriet Slater) and Luce (Arsema Thomas) are experienced climbers, though their history is more complicated than a simple partnership - the screenplay hints at a shared trauma involving a past fall and a guilt that Jax carries like a carabiner on her harness. Their goal: summit the unclimbed peak of Mount Kwan, a needle of rock that juts out of the Thai jungle with a reputation for technical difficulty and sheer, merciless exposure. But a routine ascent goes sideways when a hidden, rotten section of rock gives way. A fall, a snapped anchor, and the pair are left dangling on a precarious ledge system thousands of feet above the jungle floor, their ropes a fraying spiderweb between them and oblivion. The rest of the film is a compressed, real-time-ish battle against dehydration, fatigue, fading light, and the immense psychological weight of the drop below. Help is not coming; they have only their wits, their limited gear, and each other. Tom Brittney and Einar Haraldsson appear in supporting roles, but this is a two-woman show.

Director Michael Spierig, working solo here after his collaborations with his brother Peter on Predestination and Daybreakers, knows how to build a set piece. The cinematography is the real star. Spierig and his crew use sweeping drone shots to establish the sheer, horrifying scale of Mount Kwan, and then hone in on extreme close-ups of fingers slipping on damp rock and carabiners groaning under tension. The sound design - the whisper of wind, the skitter of loose gravel, the thud of a heartbeat - does the heavy lifting in creating a tactile, suffocating atmosphere. There’s a centerpiece sequence involving a cross-cliff traverse on a single, bowed line that is genuinely hair-raising, a masterclass in sustained, nerve-wracking tension.

The film’s core strength, however, is the dynamic between Slater and Thomas. Slater’s Jax is all coiled intensity and self-flagellating guilt, while Thomas’s Luce brings a nerve-shot pragmatism. Their dialogue avoids the clunky expository monologues that plague lesser thrillers. The backstory is drip-fed through terse arguments and loaded silences, and their banter - often the weak point in such films - feels authentic to people trying to stay calm while staring into an abyss. They sell the physical agony and the caked-on grime of their ordeal convincingly.

Yet, Deadpoint inevitably succumbs to the law of diminishing returns. The premise is inherently repetitive. The pair gets into trouble, they solve it with a clever climbing trick, they catch their breath, and then a new piece of bad luck arrives. The middle act drags noticeably, and a late-film twist involving a third party feels more like a plot convenience than a logical development. The script, credited to a returning Jonathan Frank (who wrote the first film), also asks you to accept some remarkable feats of endurance and logic. The characters make decisions - like attempting this climb with minimal backup and no satellite tracker - that feel willfully stupid for two professionals. It’s the same problem that plagued the first movie’s final act, but here it’s baked into the narrative from the start.

Thematically, the film grapples with survivor’s guilt and the idea of finding peace at the point of maximum exposure, but it never dives deep enough. The metaphor - that the "deadpoint" (the moment of zero motion at the top of a pendulum swing on a rope) is equivalent to a moment of psychological clarity - is introduced with a heavy hand and never fully explored beyond a few whispered lines. The result is a film that keeps you uncomfortably engaged for an hour and a half, but evaporates from memory shortly after the credits roll. It’s a solid, professional streamer, but it lacks the raw, innovative pulse of its predecessor’s best moments. The climax, when it arrives, feels earned but not cathartic.

Pros

• The central performances from Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas are grounded and compelling.
• The cinematography and sound design create a genuinely immersive, terrifying sense of height and exposure.
• The core "climbing problem" set pieces are cleverly designed and executed with technical believability.
• Directed with efficient, no-nonsense intensity by Michael Spierig.

Cons

• The plot is repetitive and leans on contrived setbacks.
• The middle section drags, losing narrative momentum.
• The thematic "deadpoint" metaphor is underdeveloped.
• A late-stage narrative twist feels forced and undermines the realism.

Fall 2: Deadpoint is a solid, high-altitude thriller that understands the assignment. It places two charismatic actors in a plausibly nightmarish situation and lets the camera do the screaming. It won’t change your life or the genre, and its attempts at emotional depth are largely surface-level. But as a way to spend 98 minutes with your hands clammy and your jaw tight, it is a perfectly adequate experience. It’s a strong recommendation only for hardcore fans of the survival subgenre or those who specifically crave the well-mounted, digital-age B-movie. For everyone else, it’s a perfectly acceptable descent into couch-bound anxiety - just don’t expect to be rescued from the mediocrity of its narrative pitfalls. It’s worth a watch if you’re already subscribed and looking for a thrill, but it’s not a reason to sign up.