might contain spoilers
What a great murder mystery film. As an amateur climber, I too was initially put off by the amount of unprofessional climbing techniques. However, if they were truly climbing/solo enthusiasts, how could they not get injured way before they take on any big challenges? (And from a filmmaking perspective, with climbing being such a popular sports, surly it is not hard to get some random joe from the gym to tell the film crew that those techniques are horrible! also there are other suspicious common-sense defying points later…) The answer of course, what we watched is just simply a recounting of Becky’s version of what transpired!!! Then all the inaccuracies makes perfect sense as that’s how you get the authorities to believe why the “accidents” happened in the first place — sheer negligence and amateur skills!
I believe what happened was that Becky found out that she was cheated on, then plotted to get rid of the asshat by either screwing with the cam placements and/or - as filmed but with a malignant intent - to get rid of the rope too liberally. And no one else knows exactly how good the cam placements are or whether they were tempered with - Hunter is way above them busy down-climbing!
Then, this explains perfectly her year-long depression as even if not fully planned out, her imo premeditated actions naturally put herself in even deeper sense of guilt.
Then there’s the forever unknowable fact that whether the tower trips is truly initiated by Hunter. Possibly Becky saw Hunter is living a guilt-free life and had another urge for murder and proposed to feed Hunter this great youtube/instagram clickbait trip to convince her to come along! Although the film depicts that Hunter is very heartwarming at times, it’s entirely plausible that Hunter is in fact the care-free personality that she demonstrates in all her videos online! (which might makes her more murderable in Becky’s eye). So Becky could be using a very high-IQ way of framing her victims as compassionate sweethearts.
Finally, the biggest telltale sign that the final accident is premeditated (and possibly intended by the filmcrew/writer) is that when Becky lastly went for Hunter’s body to drop down the phone, she instinctively — rightfully so for a climber clipped the carabiner to the lowest stable point which is the as yet unbroken ladder!!!(and the film gave this a real good close-up) Why on earth wouldn’t Hunter do that when she went down to retrieve the bag???!!! This is not just bad climbing, this defies common sense! We were all screaming how stupid it was of Hunter to do what she did in the bag sequence and now we know, these are all extremely likely fabrications recounted by Becky at the end of the accident!
Lastly, some keen chinese filmgoers also noted the “mistake” on the poster where in fact the ladders are failing while Becky’s at the top and Hunter is still climbing! Maybe this is a hint from the production team ;)
welp anyways it’s just a theory :p I probably watched too many asian sope-operas