The film opens with rock climbers scaling the side of a cliff.
They are Becky, and her husband, Dan.
The couple just got married and share
a passion for rock climbing, which takes them to some of the world's most treacherous terrain.
Becky also spends time there with her best friend, Hunter,
who shares the same interests. In fact, the three of them are always on the lookout for
something new and thrilling things to do. But at some point on their way to the top,
Dan accidentally stumbles upon a bird’s nest, leaving him hanging by a literal thread.
The sheer force of what just happened causes his anchor to destabilize,
and although Hunter and Becky try to save him, they could not get to him in time,
and he falls to his death.
Fifty-one weeks later, or a year later, we see Becky still drowning in grief over the death
of her husband. She still keeps his ashes with her, and has become an alcoholic who
wastes her life away, and not even her caring father’s scolding is able to turn her around.
Wanting his daughter to cheer up, her father eventually sends for her best friend, Hunter,
to pay her a visit in hopes of getting Becky back on her feet. After a year of
not doing exciting things together, Hunter tries to convince Becky to
join her in climbing an abandoned TV tower, the B67 Tower, about a 6-hour drive away.
Hunter suggests to Becky that she scatter Dan's ashes from the top to let him go. In order to
keep Becky motivated, Hunter also reminds her of what Dan said about confronting fears in life.
Although initially reluctant due to her trauma, Becky changes her mind in the
morning, after reminding herself that Dan would’ve wanted her to seize the moment.
On the way, the two make a stop at a diner to catch up on each other’s lives. Here Becky
finally learns that Hunter is now working as a host of an online show.
Interrupting their conversation, a waitress turns up, so they decide to ask if she knows where the
infamous TV tower is located. The waiter then points up to a red dot in the sky,
because apparently the tower emits a red light at night to keep planes from crashing against it.
Since the waiter said that Becky's phone can't be charged for free, Hunter shows her
a makeshift charger that enables her to charge her phone anywhere, as long as she attach it
to a power source. Afterwards, the two decide to rest up at a motel nearby, and that night,
Becky has a nightmare, which begins with Dan sleeping next to her. The dream starts off
with a past memory; she tries to get him to say “I love you”, but instead of saying it
he says the numbers 1 4 3. And then suddenly, blood starts seeping through the comforter.
Becky gets woken up by Hunter who is up and ready in her car to begin their exciting day.
After Becky climbs in, Hunter begins filming while driving for her online show, a reckless
act that almost gets them run over by a passing truck. However, the two best friends simply end
up sharing a laugh about it, and resume on their way, proving they're already in their insane mode.
They are forced to park upon a locked gate and a sign that says “no trespassing," but of course
that isn’t going to deter the two. They climb over the fence, and walk their way over to the tower,
during which time they encounter a couple of vultures feasting on a dying goat.
Feeling sorry for the poor thing, they scare the vultures away, while Hunter ignorantly
takes a picture of the goat, and posts it on Instagram before they resume walking again. When
they arrive at the tower, they are both nervous and fascinated by the height of the structure.
At the foot of the structure, Hunter records more vlog content, informing us
that the TV tower is 2000 feet tall, and is the 4th highest structure in the US.
Just witnessing the sheer height of the thing already makes Becky hyperventilate,
but Hunter reassures her that everything’s going to be alright.
After securing a rope that binds them to each other, the two begin climbing.
Becky can be seen gathering the courage to start climbing with her best friend.
Unbeknownst to them, the old structure is already
unstable as it has been abandoned for a long time, and can be seen rattling
here and there. Becky keeps climbing even though she's absolutely fearful,
and at some point she even breaks a piece of the rusty ladder.
Hunter who notices this motivates her, so they keep climbing their way up.
They then stop for a while to have a drink. According to Hunter, the lines indicate that
they are halfway up, which would mean that they have climbed 1000 feet, or the height of the
Eifel Tower. At this point, they’re so high up that the wind is blowing really strongly.
Finally, they reached the first ledge. After climbing the 1800-foot ladder inside a steel cage,
they will proceed to climb the 200-foot-high external ladder.
Climbing up the ledge, Becky inevitably witnesses how far up she is, a sight which makes her visibly disturbed.
But with Hunter’s constant encouragement, she climbs on. Here, Becky's anxiety keeps on flaring
up as she pushes herself to the absolute limit. They then pass the satellite dish,
and keep climbing up the tower. At some point, Hunter starts making fun of Becky
by shaking the ladder. But unbeknownst to them, a bolt on the ladder is released.
The two eventually arrive at another ledge at the very top after all of their anxieties.
Having reached this far up is undoubtedly exhilarating, so even Becky rejoices along
with her best friend, who takes out her drone and begins filming the view around for her vlog.
But of course, Hunter doesn’t stop there. She hangs herself off the ledge, and asks
Becky to take pictures of her. Right after, she also asks Becky to do the same, and despite her
initial hesitation, Becky eventually agrees and hangs off the ledge while holding onto Hunter.
Despite the precariousness of it all, the two are miraculously not dead yet,
and Hunter proudly embraces her best friend for overcoming her fear.
Up next, it is now time to do the grand gesture: Becky takes out Dan’s ashes and
spreads it to the wind, and the two share a heartfelt moment reminiscing about Dan.
Now that that’s over and done with, they are ready to head back down.
They tuck all their things back inside the backpack, and put their harnesses back on,
and Becky goes first. But this time, things escalated quickly when the
disaster struck. The old ladder finally breaks, suspending Becky in the air.
Hunter is prompted to loop the rope around the tiny pole to gain some leverage,
and slowly pull Becky back up. Meanwhile, the entire length of the
ladder is now ripped off of the main pole, crashing down to the ground behind Becky.
Once Becky makes it back up, she and Hunter laugh in relief, but it doesn’t take long for them to
realize that the ladder is now gone, making it impossible for them to climb their way down.
They try checking their phones, but of course there is no signal this far up
the ground. They then discover a small emergency box at the bottom of the pole,
which contains binoculars and a flare gun, but there is no point to use the gun right
this second. Not only that, Becky’s backpack which contains their water and drone is now
stuck on a satellite dish below them, very much out of reach. Becky begins to panic,
even more so when she realizes that there is now a massive gash on her thigh. Hunter assures her that
the loud crashing noises caused by the ladders falling earlier must have drawn some attention,
and help should be on the way. Hearing this, Becky calms down and agrees to wait.
At some point, Becky pees off the ledge, because she is no longer able to hold it. The two laugh
lightheartedly at this, and proceed to try and kill time by vlogging. Hunter ends up opening
up about the reason why she started vlogging, which turns out to be because of Dan’s death.
A few hours later, Hunter decides to check out her surroundings using a binocular, and discovers an
RV parked not too far away from the tower. This is when an idea comes to her mind: she takes out
her phone, and remembers that there was signal when they were at the bottom, looking at the
amount of likes on her recently posted picture. This means that if they lower their phone enough,
they would eventually be able to get a signal. Hunter sets up an Instagram post calling to her
followers for help, then secures her phone with a hair tie. She then lowers it using the rope,
but they still don’t hear a ding that marks that it has been posted. Therefore, the insane Hunter
decides to hang herself down the remaining ladder, but unfortunately, it still won’t post.
Right after, Becky comes up with the idea to simply drop the phone down, but to keep it from breaking, they
tuck it inside Hunter’s shoe, and pads it with socks, and a push-up bra before dropping it below.
Just so happens, Becky notices a tattoo on Hunter’s feet, and at the same time,
Hunter sees a guy and his dog standing right below, though he seems to be preoccupied
talking on the phone. Hunter and Becky keep screaming, before Becky decides to
throw down her pair of shoes in hopes that he’d notice, but he doesn’t and starts walking away.
Becky takes out the flare gun and is about to shoot it, but Hunter tells her to wait,
because apparently, there are people parked with their RV not too far from the tower, so they
should wait until sundown to fire the flare. While they wait, Becky kills time by browsing
through her phone looking at old videos, and notices an odd clip. In it, she sees
Hunter staring at her and Dan in jealousy. Her best friend snaps her back to reality
by announcing to her that it’s time to shoot the flare. Becky does as asked,
while Hunter waves her phone around with her flash turned on.
Luckily, the two men in the RV notice them, and proceed to take their RV to the gate,
right where Hunter’s car is parked.
But instead of heading for the tower,
they instead break into Hunter’s car and steal it away, crushing their hopes.
The two best friends are forced to try to sleep up on the tower that night,
until Hunter almost falls and Becky pulls her back upright.
It is here that Becky points out the tattoo she just saw on Hunter’s bare feet,
which contains the numbers 1,4,3, of which are the numbers Dan always said
whenever Becky asked him to say “I love you.”
This leaves Hunter with no other choice, but to confess that she and Dan used to have an affair.
In the morning, the two are stuck in an uncomfortable tension, so Becky begins
asking more details about the affair, which gets Hunter to apologize profusely and insists
that she did fall in love with Dan. However, she decided to end the affair right before
Becky and Dan’s wedding, because she felt guilty and cherishes their friendship more.
Soon after, an alarm on Becky’s phone rings, marking 24 hours since they’ve been stuck
here. This gives them clarity that no help is coming, and Becky begins wishing that they
had their drone with them, but it’s stuck inside the backpack on the satellite dish.
Possibly wanting to make up for her past mistakes,
Hunter ultimately decides to go down there and take the backpack.
She anchors her carabiner around the pole, and begins to descent.
Unfortunately, she falls short from reaching it.
Being the reckless daredevil she is, she unhooks herself from the rope,
and jumps on the dish, successfully reaching her backpack.
However, now the rope is out of reach.
so she takes out a selfie stick from the backpack.
She successfully hooks the backpack on the rope, before making a precarious jump on it.
Hunter ascends, and almost makes it back to the top, but then…
Hunter falls, and Becky starts crying. But when she looks down, she finds Hunter still hanging
on the rope, except now her hands injured, making her incapable of climbing back up.
Becky then uses all of her strength, and luckily, she manages to pull Hunter back to safety.
After taking a sip of water from the backpack, they decide to write a note,
and tuck it onto the drone before sending it away.
Unfortunately, it runs out of juice before it makes it too far, forcing them to send it back.
Now out of ideas, Becky appears desperate, but Hunter assures her
that they’ll find a way out soon enough. Later that night, Becky awakens from her
sleep to find that Hunter has died, and her corpse is ravaged by vultures. Luckily, it’s all but a
bad dream. Upon seeing the red light above her, an idea comes to her mind: they have to climb up, and
charge the drone using Hunter’s makeshift charger. They then wait until morning to do it,
and since Hunter’s hands have severe rope burns, it’s all up to Becky.
Despite her injured thigh, she climbs up to the top, with the encouragement from Hunter.
When Becky reaches the top, she unravels the light socket, before plugging the charger in there. She
hangs on while she waits for the drone to charge, until at some point, a vulture begins to mess
with her because of the wound on her thigh. The vulture even manages to knock her backpack down.
Luckily, Becky clings close to the pole, and manages to keep the drone safe and
sound. Once it has fully charged, Becky slides back down and pukes her gut out.
They now have to wait for the diner to open to send the drone there,
but due to the lack of food and exhaustion, Becky struggles to not pass out. Hunter helps her stay
awake by keeping a conversation with her, until it is time for them to send the drone.
They once again tuck a note on the drone, and send it flying out to the diner.
Again, it's too bad that it gets hit by a passing truck just before reaching its destination.
Hopeless, they watch the day go by, until Becky voices that she can’t possibly survive another
day out here, but Hunter reminds her to stay strong. Realizing that her best friend is right,
Becky asks Hunter for her other shoe so she can throw her phone down this time,
since it's the very last thing they can do. Well, this time Hunter says no, because as it turns out,
Hunter was never up there with her this whole time. Yes, that’s right folks:
Hunter has actually died a while ago, when she fell after retrieving the backpack,
and her dead body is now lying on top of the dish below, being eaten by a vulture.
The grief-stricken Becky has been alone this whole time but instead of acknowledging it,
conjures up a delusion of her best friend so that she won’t feel so alone.
Finally hit by reality, Becky breaks down crying, while harsh wind blows around her. She remembers
her father, and how much she loves him, and decides to record a goodbye message, seemingly
has given up on trying to survive. On the other side of the story, her concerned father has been
trying to contact her and find her whereabouts. On the next day, we see our girl Becky still
sitting up on the tower, and her injured leg has drawn the attention of a hungry vulture. It begins
pecking on Becky’s wound, so with the last of her strength, she yanks it off and bashes its head in,
instantly killing it. Afterwards, she devours the vulture raw out of hunger, revealing that
there is still hope in her after all. Once she has regained her strength,
she musters up the courage to climb down to reach for Hunter’s shoe, her last hope.
She then releases the rope and lands on top of the satellite dish, scaring the vulture that is
devouring Hunter's flesh. Right after, she sends a text to her father noting her whereabouts, before
tucking it inside Hunter’s shoe. Becky says sorry before sticking the shoe inside Hunter’s exposed
gut, and throwing her dead body down to ensure that the phone doesn’t get crushed by the fall.
But then, a screw on the rusty dish comes off, putting her in danger.
We then skip to a few hours later, to Becky's father who is rushing to the tower
location. Afterwards, we see a view of police officers and medics gathered around the tower,
right when Becky’s father arrives and witnesses a view of a dead body covered in a tarp.
Just as the father fears that his daughter is dead, Becky calls for him and rushes up to
him, to let him know that she is safe and sound. This is where the movie ends.