Pitfall doesn’t waste time pretending it’s anything other than a gnarly survival slasher. It throws you straight into the chaos, opens with some impressively nasty gore, and makes it very clear early on that this is a film that wants to make you squirm. For a while, it works.
The premise is simple and effective. A group of friends head into the woods, one of them ends up impaled in a spike-filled pit, and it quickly becomes clear this isn’t bad luck, it’s a hunt. From there, the movie blends backwoods slasher energy with survival horror, leaning into brutality and desperation. At its best, it feels like a stripped-down mashup of Friday the 13th and something more endurance-driven.
Director James Kondelik shows real growth here. If you’ve seen his earlier work, this is easily his most polished effort. The film looks good, the forest setting is genuinely beautiful, and there are moments where the tension actually locks in. You can tell there’s a stronger sense of control behind the camera, even if that control doesn’t always extend to the script or edit.
And when it comes to performances, Richard Harmon once again walks away with the movie. He’s the standout by a mile. Every second he’s on screen has weight, and once he’s gone, you feel the absence immediately. It becomes one of those situations where you’re just waiting for the movie to circle back to him.
Randy Couture, on the other hand, is used exactly how he should be. He’s not asked to deliver lengthy dialogue or emotional range he doesn’t have. Instead, he’s there to glare, stalk, and kill. It works. He’s physically intimidating, and the film wisely leans into that rather than trying to stretch him into something he isn’t.
The kills are where Pitfall really tries to earn its keep. There are flashes of brutality that genuinely hit, with some sequences that feel like they wandered in from a harsher, meaner movie. A few moments are downright stomach-turning in the best way, tapping into that “make the audience cringe” horror sweet spot. The pits themselves look like something out of Mortal Kombat, which is honestly a compliment here.
But the problem is consistency. The film will deliver something nasty, then coast for too long before the next hit. It occasionally feels like kills are dropped in just to keep the body count moving rather than building momentum. By the time you reach the back half, the impact starts to fade.
There’s also a frustrating amount of bizarre decision-making baked into the script. Characters routinely make choices that don’t just feel wrong, they feel nonsensical. Someone refuses to unlock a car for no clear reason. Another character has a gun and simply chooses not to use it while being actively hunted. Moments like that don’t create tension, they pull you out of it.
Dialogue doesn’t help. It often leans cheesy, especially in some of the more emotional or relationship-driven scenes. There are attempts at heartfelt beats that land closer to corny, and a few extended speeches that completely deflate urgency. At one point, a character is basically allowed to monologue through their impending death, which raises the obvious question of why no one is doing anything to stop it.
Technically, the film is a mixed bag. There’s solid practical gore work that looks great, which makes the occasional use of CG blood even more frustrating because it cheapens what was already working. The same goes for the CG wolves. They don’t look terrible in isolation, but the movement and pacing next to real actors feels off enough to notice.
The editing is another issue. At 108 minutes, it’s simply too long for what it is. Scenes stretch past their breaking point, conversations wander, and certain sequences drag when they should be sharp and relentless. This is the kind of movie that would benefit massively from a tighter, meaner cut. Even some of the technical choices, like inconsistent focus during walking shots or noticeable ADR, add to the uneven feel.
Tonally, the film never fully locks in either. It flirts with emotional depth, survival grit, slasher chaos, and even awkward attempts at intimacy, including one very strange, fully clothed sex scene that feels completely out of place. Add in the banjo-heavy score that channels Deliverance vibes alongside more generic horror cues, and the movie ends up feeling like it’s juggling too many ideas without fully committing to any of them.
By the time the finale rolls around, the stakes should feel sky-high. Instead, it all lands a bit underwhelming. The reveal doesn’t hit as hard as it should, largely because there isn’t enough groundwork to support it. It technically adds to the story, but it doesn’t deepen the danger or make things feel more urgent. Even the ending stretches itself out with a fake-out “it’s over” moment that keeps going longer than it needs to.
That said, Pitfall isn’t without merit. It’s an easy watch if you’re in the mood for something messy, brutal, and occasionally effective, with real flashes of a much better film buried in its directing and practical horror elements. But it’s ultimately weighed down by too many strange choices, too many competing ideas, and not enough discipline to tie everything together cleanly, resulting in an enjoyable but uneven survival slasher that delivers on gore and atmosphere even as it repeatedly trips over its own logic, pacing, and tonal inconsistency.
Jessie Hobson