Fall movie: is B67 TV tower real, is Netflix film a true story, how was it filmed, where is KXTV/KOVR tower?

Two women climb a 2,000-foot radio tower and become stranded at the top without a way down or a way to call for help in the survival thriller Fall from 2022.

A brand-new audience of fans of suspense who may not have seen the movie when it was initially released in theatres late last year has discovered the film since it recently made an appearance on Netflix.

The premise of the film sounds absurd, and it is, but that’s one of the elements that make Fall a surprisingly fun ride. It’s not going to win any awards for acting or storytelling, but getting together with a group of friends and enjoying its melodramatic story together is a good way to spend an evening.

While many of the film’s special effects look rough by modern standards, some shots are genuinely vertigo-inducing. Don’t watch this one if you suffer from acrophobia!

In amongst the online discussion surrounding the film, one question has been jumping out: “Is Fall a true story?” Here is everything we know.

Is Fall a true story?

No, Fall is not a true story, and is a complete work of fiction. That being said, a real life location did inspire the fictional broadcast tower that the two central characters clamber up.

The B67 TV tower seen in the film does not exist, but it was inspired by the real KXTV/KOVR tower, a radio tower in Walnut Grove, California. That tower stands at 2,049 feet (625 metres), and is the seventh tallest man-made structure to have ever existed.

In terms of whether any similar stories of mast-based strandings have occurred, a quick Google reveals America’s vast network of broadcast towers are ripe for engineers and workers to get stuck at the top of them.

However, we’ve yet to come across any such story where those involved were stuck for more than a few hours, with authorities usually relatively quick on the scene to help out. And the stories we did find seemed to take place at heights much lower than the 2,000 feet seen in Fall.

How was it filmed?

No prizes for working out that Fall was not actually filmed 2,000 feet in the air, but the film’s crew did still go to great lengths to make it appear as if the actors were clinging on for dear life at stomach churning heights.

Director Scott Mann has said that although green screen or digital sets had been considered in achieving the look of the film, ultimately they wanted to shoot Fall as practically and on-location as possible,

So instead, in order to make the actors appear to be thousands of feet in the air, they decided to build the upper portion of the tower on top of a mountain.

In reality, stars Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner were never more than 100 feet from the ground, but the set’s location still posed some challenges, namely weather such as lightning and strong winds.