Gripped: Climbing the Killer Pillar

Good plot , well acted , climbing realistic enough ! Possibly based on a true story , being a climber myself ! Disasters constantly happen every day. Good Covid lockdown movie .

Look, it's a low-budget movie, we know that. It doesn't have the craziness of a movie like Cliffhanger, or the real world insanity of Free Solo.

But for a low budget movie, let's be fair. It's well done, it maintains tension all the way through, it looks gorgeous, and it's about as realistic as a movie like this really can be. (Sure the female lead has fewer upper body muscles than one would expect, on the other hand she is supposed to be just starting and basically a city girl, too naive to realize how dumb she is being.) I've seen plenty of much more expensive action movies that left me a lot more disappointed.

This movie is like the skin that forms over pudding. You know what I'm talking about. Either you love pudding skin or you hate it. I waited and waited for this movie to be OK, but it did not happen. Because this movie is silly and dumb and the musical score made feel a sensation quite like marbles slamming against my skull.

Then the movie ended.

I have seen Amanda Maddox in a couple of Lifetime movies so I figured I would give this one a try. The moment when slimeball Bret tried to kiss Rose (Maddox) in his trailer I began to despise the movie. These types of PG TV movies are often put together hastily without a buildup. The way she fell for him by just seeing him and in the conversations mostly they talked about climbing, but not their own backgrounds, where they're from what they do for a living etc. Is just annoying which often happens in these stupid thrillers.

And as for Bret being an experienced outdoor rock climber and he falls and gets injured and Rose who has no outdoor experience all of a sudden becomes the hero in the movie is just stupid and far-fetched. I am not a rock climber but aren't rock climbers supposed to wear helmets, and not just bandanas?

Seriously the further the movie progressed the more I was rooting for both of them to fall off the cliff. Do not waste your time with this crap!

Oh man, what a ride. The characters are terribly one dimensional, all over place emotionally and act incomprehensibly. There's so much reused footage it seems like they're doing loops on the wall and anyone who's spent even a bit of time climbing will likely roll their eyes at the writer's attempts to cram as much jargon in as possible, regardless of whether it fits or even makes sense. You know how some films are so bad they're good? Yeah this isn't one of them, it's just bad. Avoid.