DON'T LOOK DOWN

Carla Engel, since the day her sister died from a fall off a cliff while posing for a photo, sees her life change due to terrifying visions that remind her of her poor deceased sister and the terrible fear of heights and emptiness. To overcome this fear, Carla decides to enroll in Dr. Paul Sadowski's support course. But things do not go as hoped, and since Carla is enrolled in the group, all members are mysteriously killed, one by one. For the series "Wes Craven presents" (which also includes respectable films like "Wishmaster" and "They-incubi dal mondo delle ombre") unfortunately, in 1998, this abominable and baffling TV movie is distributed by Universal, which, precisely because of its nature as a TV film, absolutely fails to create tense scenes and turns out to be terribly banal and not at all engaging. Directed with incompetence by Larry Shaw (a director mainly involved with TV series), the film has endless errors: the initial idea, which was certainly not bad for making a good thriller movie, is completely destroyed by an extremely amateurish and too television-like screenplay that in no way manages to create adrenaline-filled scenes, fails absolutely to arouse interest but succeeds in the best way to bore the viewer, leading them to turn off the television after just five minutes from the start of the film. A poorly written screenplay is accompanied by a bad and elementary direction with clearly TV product characteristics, a very bright and uncared-for photography, only suitable for a series C TV show, and a cast that manages to make your skin crawl. The actors are indeed all little known to the public, and among them we can mention Megan Ward as the protagonist Carla (who appeared almost exclusively in TV series but who in 1993 had acted in the film "Freaked") and Billy Burke (who appeared in 2004 alongside Joaquin Phoenix in "Ladder 49"), moreover, all of them seem out of place in the film and do not manage to get into the skin of their character at all. It should be added that, always thanks to its television nature, violent scenes are completely absent: the murders, in addition to happening very rarely, are never shown but always off-screen, disappointing even the viewer who hoped for at least some nice gore effects. Finally, if the viewer has managed to resist until the end of the viewing of this film without changing the channel or turning off the television, they will regret not having done so when they reach the final solution, which appears weak, banal, poorly thought out, and poorly executed. In conclusion, "Vertigini - don’t look down" is a bad film, not at all engaging or interesting, but only manages to bore the viewer. It is incredible that a master of horror like Wes Craven decided to present without shame a movie of this level. To be avoided without regrets.