The Falling

Not everything made in the ‘80s was radical. The Falling is such a film. Overall the film is rather terrible, but is so in an almost fun to watch way. It’s the kind of thing that makes for good viewing when you want to turn your brain off for about 90 minutes. I mean c’mon! Any movie with three names (The Falling, Mutant 2, and Alien Predator), in my experience, are usually a mess – and this one most certainly is. Moral of the story: Don’t think. Just watch.

Three American friends cruising around Spain in an RV end up in the middle of some sort of Alien virus NASA cover up gone wrong. The three friends, one female and two male, are also in a ridiculously awkward love triangle, which provides some of the most hilariously stilted dialogue and cringe inducing scenes on record. There’s also a NASA dude, who, of course, enlists the help of the friends.

The movie is full of all sorts of random things, none more so than a dump truck that is seemingly bent on killing the three friends. Why the dump truck is after them is a mystery, much like most of the plot and all of the acting. But at least at one point there is a chase involving the truck and a dune buggy and it’s rather epic in both its cheesiness and epicness.

The characters are caricatures and nothing more. There is no development, unless you consider the two dopey guys painfully hitting on the dumb blonde. I almost started to think about why the blonde girl was on the trip in the first place, but on queue one of the guys mentioned bringing her so she could cook and clean for them. Then I realized that their idea was sexist AND awesome. Especially since the two guys basically decide to have a contest on who can bang her first. It’s not like this chick wasn’t asking for it, right? Please don’t call the FemiNazis on me.

The effects are on par with the rest of movie (Read: Bad), but do involve a chest explosion ala Alien and a bloody infested dead deer. And a small town full of people with continuous nose bleeds who have really bad hand-writing. But good money went into the dump truck rental dune buggy chase explosions, of which there are many. Actually, thinking about it, MOST of the budget was spent on explosions.

There isn’t much in the way of plot development; you know where it’s going within the first couple minutes so I won’t bore you with the deets. The end is a bit of shocker, though. Just know that this is a bad B-movie that only lovers of the bottom of the barrel stuff will enjoy.

Rating: 3/10

Snore Factor: ZZZ

IMDB 1987

Trailer: