Schau nie nach unten! Die Angst am Abgrund

When I sat down to watch this, I didn't know too much about it; what I knew was that Wes Craven was one of the producers, and that it was a made-for-TV movie. When it started, I quickly discovered that two things; one, it was one of those mystery thrillers, where you're supposed to guess who the killer is, and two, it's mainly made to scare those who suffer from acrophobia, fear of heights(hence the title). For a TV movie, the production is surprisingly good, and the film does contain a few intense scenes. Since I suffer from a mild case of acrophobia myself, I found plenty of scenes to be scary and intense(not to say that people who couldn't care less about heights won't find them so too, though). The plot is surprisingly good, and does hold water to some extent; I wouldn't call it great, but it's not really that far-fetched. The acting is decent, no going around that. All of the actors are unknowns, which could be(and probably is) why, but it could also be the direction, which, admittedly isn't great(but hey, this guy's only done series and half-bad movies before, so what do you expect?). The characters are well-written, and mostly avoid being overly cliché-like; apart from the lead, none of them seemed like stereotypes. The special effects were OK, not better nor worse than the standard for TV movies. Considering the production values, I was surprised by how much the film actually did manage to shock and frighten me. The mystery was very good; it kept me guessing throughout the film, and when the answer was revealed, I was very surprised. I thought I had considered every possible outcome, but the film still managed to surprise me with the twist. I'm not sure what to draw as a conclusion from that; maybe the films plot is actually good, but just surrounded by mediocrity in the acting, writing and to a certain extent, theme, which drags the film down to just being decent overall... or maybe I'm just easily manipulated. Who knows. All in all, a decent mystery thriller. I recommend it exclusively to big fans of mystery films and people who suffer from acrophobia; since both apply to me, I really enjoyed it. Pretty much everyone else should just skip this one. 5/10

Don't Look Down starts off with two sisters being photographed on the edge of a huge drop. You know what will happen next, and the same can be said for the rest of the film.

Some parts were eerie when you felt if might have a supernatural cause to it but the big finale was a complete cop out. A Saturday evening "thriller" in the vein of Murder She Wrote disguised as a Wes Craven horror film. Don't be fooled. I was bored throughout most of it and even a little bit angry at the end.

The guy from Beverly Hills 90210 is in this for crying out loud.

This is a terrible film which makes you wish the entire production team had fallen off that cliff.

This wasn't exactly what I had expected from a Wes Craven movie, it wasn't entirely bad, but it certainly won't be a movie I'll remember in a month, possibly not even next week - it has a predictable villain and a paper thin story. The worst aspect of the movie was probably the way the antagonist revealed his 'dastardly' plan at the end, no surprises here. My rating: 2/10

Like most people who viewed this movie I suspect, I picked up this movie because Wes Craven's name was listed prominently on the cover, in the credits on the back, etc. Lo and behold, this is not directed, written, nor overseen by Mr. Craven, but only produced by him. A sad case of marketing over matter. Well, who cares, right? I do, because what lay inside the DVD case was a fairly mediocre movie that doesn't seem to know if it's a psycho-thriller or a character study or a murder mystery. Kinney's take as the psychologist is the only really good acting here (the heroine is particularly dull in her delivery) and the cinematography, which should make us vertiginous, just feels static. There was a bit here to work with, script and plot wise, but it's been done (Diabolique, Vertigo, Mousetrap) before, and done better. C-.

Carla Engel (Megan Ward) is married with the photographer Mark (Billy Burke) and they are in love with each other. One day, while shooting pictures of Carla and her sister Rachel (Tara Spencer-Nairn) in a cliff, the parapet fails and Rachel falls down in the precipice, immediately dying. Carla becomes acrophobiac and tries to get over her trauma joining a group having acrophobia and treated by Dr. Paul Sadowski (Terry Kinney). The members of the group start to get mysteriously killed one by one, apparently by the ghost of Rachel. Carla begins to doubt of her sanity. The killer is revealed only in the last scene. This movie is another bureaucratic, predictable and full of clichés thriller. The name of Wes Craven and beauty of Megan Ward are the greatest attractions of this low budget TV movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): `Não Olhe Para Baixo' (`Don´t Look Down')