FALL (2022) premiered as a captivating, plot-twist infested film that followed best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) during a high-rise climb gone wrong. 2,000 feet in the air, they battled hunger and desperation, until a shock twist revealed that Hunter had been a long-dead figment of Becky’s imagination. Labelled as a strikingly unpredictable thriller, FALL released to critical and audience acclaim, and thus a sequel soon followed.

In FALL 2: Deadpoint, Hunter’s sister, Jax (Harriet Slater), challenges herself to overcome grief and fear by tackling a treacherous plank walk on Mount Kwan, Thailand. However, an earthquake leaves them stranded from their guide, played by Tom Brittney, and 3,000 feet in the air. With only a single wooden plank between them, and dwindling resources, the pair are forced to push themselves to the limit and test their survival instincts in an impossible feat to return home.

Nexus Point News had the pleasure of sitting down with Fall 2: Deadpoint Directors Peter and Michael Spierig. In this interview, we discussed upping the stakes of the first film, plans for future Fall instalments and if the duo envision the franchise becoming the next Final Destination.

James Crooks: I think we should start with how you upped the stakes from the first film. How did you navigate that challenge?

Peter Spierig: Yeah, I mean, we were such big fans of the first film. That in itself is a challenge because Scott [Mann] did such a good job with that movie and [we were] trying to come up with something new that is in the spirit of the first film, but isn’t just doing the first film again. So we pitched a number of different ideas to the producers, and the one that we all gravitated towards was the plank walk. It’s a real place in China that exists – in a slightly different form than what’s in the movie – but we were all able to just jump on YouTube and have a look at that, and quickly we could see how terrifying that was going to be and what that was going to be for an audience.

So we started there and then we thought a lot about, well, what are the obstacles along the way? How can this be terrifying and also not be just in the one place? You know, they’re progressing along the path and then ultimately they get stuck in one place for a portion of the movie but it’s very much navigating different obstacles along the way. And then it’s constantly escalating that. How much further can we push this? It’s not just about slippery planks. It’s about the planks then breaking. And then they’ve got to walk along these terrifying beams and things like that. So it’s constantly upping the stakes and doing it in a way that feels natural and doesn’t feel like we’re just coming up with stuff that doesn’t fit organically into the world that we’re creating.

James Crooks: You guys weren’t the directors of the first film, so can you talk to me about the challenges of directing the sequel having not been involved in the first film at all?

Michael Spierig: Look, Peter and I have done this before. I mean, we directed one of the Saw movies, [Jigsaw], so we’ve come into a project before where it’s not our project. We’re basically directors for hire. And those experiences have their good and bad side, I guess. Like, with this film, it was more than just being directors for hire. We pitched a bunch of ideas. So the Plank Walk idea was sort of originally our idea, and then Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank came in and wrote a draft based on that sort of idea. So we felt like we were participating on an early level here…

Directing is not as rigid as you think, because [sometimes] it just evolves as things start getting built, [people] get cast, as good actors get involved they have ideas. So, Peter and I are not the types of filmmakers that say “this is it”, say verbatim “we’re not changing anything”, we like to sort of go with the flow – with some clear plans, make no mistake! You’ve got to build things that you’re going to shoot, otherwise you’re wasting everybody’s time and money, but we sort of allow the process to dictate a little bit to us how it’s going to go. And of course, there is this thing where Peter and I love action movies. We grew up watching Indiana Jones and this is as close as Peter and I are going to get to making an Indiana Jones film, right? So we threw in a lot of those action adventure films that we love so much. When it comes to craft and camera work, the best thing is always making it feel like the audience is in the scene, they’re participating.

And with somebody like Harriet Slater, who plays Jax, she’s kind of the eyes of the audience and very vulnerable and perhaps reacts most like most of us in terms of terror and all those things. So when you have a character that’s kind of the eyes of the audience, [and] you play it that way – we shot a lot with her point of view so you see her looking down and all that stuff – I think adds to that experience. We feel like our job is always to to take the intention of the script, the basic broad intention, which is ‘vertigo thrill ride’, and then we must deliver on that. 

James Crooks: As I was doing prep for this discussion, I saw lots of comments comparing the FALL movies to the Final Destination franchise and that idea of anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Do you think there is potential for FALL to achieve that same level of cult status in the future with more instalments? 

Peter Spierig: Hopefully the goal is to continue the franchise. And the third film has already been written and is going to go into production with Scott Mann directing. So there is a plan for sure of continuing the story and characters continue through the story too. It’s got a continuity through the films. So, yes, absolutely. That would be great. I’m sure everybody would love to have the success of a Final Destination.

Michael Spierig: Look, I love the Final Destination franchise. I think Peter and I could direct the hell out of a Final Destination movie. But that is more like the angel of death on your shoulder following you. And it’s like you sit there going, how bad is this going to get for this person? So I kind of understand that ‘how bad can it get for this person’? But we’re not as cynical as Final Destination. It’s not as horror tropey. We’re more, I guess, thriller based, more in the Hitchcockian style. And no disrespect to Final Destination, they’ve got their own thing going and it’s great! [But] ours is less comical perhaps? 

James Crooks: You utilize snap cuts to chains breaking or nails popping out of wood, or a first person pov to invoke terror. How difficult is it restraining yourself from using this trick too much to maintain that shock value? 

Peter Spierig: I would say that I think you have to go slightly overboard and then pull it back. You know, we shoot a lot of that stuff. We come from horror films largely, we love that type of stuff. And you can always scale it back. These types of things you need to build the tension and the fear and it’s a very Hitchcockian approach. It’s all those little details that make the moment terrifying. You see the screw slightly loosened, but you don’t see it fall off yet. The audience knows it’s coming and if you put the beats in there, it helps to build the tension and keeps escalating and escalating. It’s not anything new, we’re stealing from the best! That’s the way you do it. But it works, it’ll always work if you do it right.

Michael Spieig: I mean, our philosophy follows the philosophy of the first film too. We studied the first film very closely in terms of the effectiveness of heights and trying to shoot as much stuff for real. Building sets, not using blue screens, that whole approach to do things as real as humanly possible with actors. Throw them into situations, put them up on wires, throw rain on them, do all of that sort of stuff, and it just creates a real tactile quality to the film, so it doesn’t just feel like just a studio shoot.

James Crooks: We should talk about Harriet Slater’s performance as Jax, as her screams sound so real, almost primal. How as directors are you getting that level of performance from her? 

Peter Spierig: You’re right, she’s a very good actress. So a portion of it’s done because we’ve cast the right person. But one of the things that was so important to Michael and I was to be able to put them in a very real environment. To put them out in the sun, to put them out in the rain, to put them in the wind, to put them 40 feet in the air with harnesses and all that stuff .It adds a layer to the performance that you don’t get when you’re on the ground against a blue screen. It really can transform a performance. And we kind of wanted to make it hard for the actors. We wanted it to not be fun, you know, in that sense. We don’t do that because we’re sadistic, we do it because it will inform the performance…

Michael Spierig: I’m kind of sadistic. I don’t know what you’re talking about!

Peter Spierig: I mean, a little bit. There’s a little bit of that. But to some degree, the actors had to be a little bit miserable at times because that’s just what they’re experiencing. And they were down for everything, they were total team players! But it was tough and I think that makes the film better. I think that they’re proud of that. Like you said, the screams are more primal and the fear is more intense because that’s there in the environment and the place we put them for real.

Michal Spierig: Every actor sort of transforms, but there’s inherent traits in them that seem to translate all the time, right? Like you go see a Harrison Ford movie, there’s always elements of him in there. Or Tom Cruise or whoever it is. And that’s what you like about it. The same thing [applies] when we cast Harriet [Slater] or Arsema [Thomas] or Tom [Brittney]. Harriet has a vulnerability to her, a sort of sensitivity that I think is very relatable. Arsema has a more adventurous spirit. That’s her. She’ll go to Thailand and eat a scorpion. No problem, she has that adventurous spirit. And Tom’s very charming and very charismatic. So you cast based on truth in the actor, but then you try to bring out more of it as well. 

James Crooks: Let’s talk about your future. What’s next in store for you both?

Peter Spierig: We’ve just wrapped a movie we’re editing at the moment called Headless, which is a horror film that is sort of like a combination of a modern-day Headless horseman tale mixed with Terminator. So it’s very much sort of a grindhouse road movie. It’s been a lot of fun! I mean, I think the audience is going to have a wild time with this one. It’s back to our roots in a way with horror and lots of good times, lots of blood and guts, all that kind of stuff.

Michael Spierig: Lots of gooey, gory fun on that one!

James Crooks Have you seen the videos going around of people watching Fall 2 whilst on the wooden planks?

Michael Spierig: I have!

James Crooks: It’s brilliant, isn’t it?

Michael Spierig: It’s a great idea. I saw Virginia [Gardner] and Grace [Caroline Currey] were there, the actresses from the first film! It’s a great idea, I don’t know if i’d be able to stand and do it but i’d give it a go, yeah!

James Crooks: I think my legs would go after 20 minutes.

Michael Spierig: It’s a hell of a thing. I like it. They should do that in every theater now… how do you eat your popcorn when you’re doing that?

Fall 2: Deadpoint releases in Theatres September 2.