We’ve all seen this setup before: a group of friends head into the remote woods, the sun goes down, and suddenly they’re isolated in the dark. It’s classic horror territory. But Pitfall isn’t interested in just running through the usual slasher checklist. Instead, the film uses that generic setup and screws around with it in an unexpected way. It takes the white-knuckle dread of a survival thriller and anchors it to something much more real – a raw, grounded look at family grief and the fractures that form between siblings when tragedy strikes.
Gruesome deaths, traps that would make Jigsaw jealous, and a creepy psycho killer who taunts his victims with their impending deaths, Pitfall knows its audience and doesn’t play down to it. There’s a lot of emotional baggage on display, and actual character development makes the impending deaths feel even more tragic.
Pitfall opens with a brief backstory on the woods where siblings Scott and Ashley, their partners Gwen and Charlie, and BFF Lars choose to camp. Decades prior to their fateful trip to the woods, a mother was murdered and tossed into a pitfall trap. Her young son survived but also wound up in the pit next to his dead mother.
So, yes, these woods have a terrifying history.
As for the sibling’s backstory, it’s equally as haunting. Scott (Marshall Williams, Christmas of Giving) and Ashley (Alexandra Essoe, Midnight Mass) were traveling with their parents when suddenly a deer leapt in front of the car. Their parents didn’t survive. Since that tragic day, their relationship has been fractured almost beyond repair. Five years after their parents’ death, this camping trip in the woods is meant to help clear the air and mend their severed relationship.
Neither Scott nor Ashley looks forward to the trip, and with 20/20 hindsight they had good reason to want to avoid this particular get-together in the woods.
Scott’s intense guilt over the splinter in his relationship with Ashley, combined with Ashley’s depression and severe anxiety, casts a feeling of doom and gloom over the camping trip. Fortunately, Gwen (Jordan Claire Robbins, The Umbrella Academy) and Charlie (Matt Hamilton, Don’t Scream, It’s Me!) are there to cheer their partners on. And Lars (Richard Harmon, Final Destination Bloodlines) is there as emotional support, comic relief, and to deliver one-liners that take the focus off the reason for the trip.
The deep-seeded emotional baggage that Ashley and Scott are carting around means that tensions rapidly escalate when things go south. There’s no cell phone service, they have the bare minimum in supplies, and on the first night out Scott falls into a pitfall trap while he and Charlie are running from a pack of wolves. Charlie’s so freaked out that by the time he returns to camp, he has no idea which direction to head to rescue Scott.
And to make matters worse, they’re not alone in the woods. The group is easily outmatched by a silent adversary (Randy Couture) with a particular set of skills and a penchant for blood, guts, and gore. It turns out these five campers aren’t the first to experience the terror of being stalked by a madman who prefers slaughtering humans to hunting animals.
Pitfall does a fantastic job of merging the absolute terror of fish-out-of-water city dwellers being hunted by a psychopath and the strained relationship between siblings who can’t seem to bridge the distance left between them following their parents’ deaths. The focus shifts back and forth between two distinct survival scenarios: one involving poor Scott, who’s alone with his demons in a pit, a spike protruding from his thigh, no edible food, and a dwindling water supply, and one involving Gwen, Ashley, Lars, and Charlie trying to find Scott while being pursued by a psycho killer.
Scott’s isolation and severe thigh impalement lead to hallucinations as his mental state diminishes. And the camera’s right there next to him, trapping us in the pit from hell. We gain a reprieve when the perspective shifts to his friends and sister being systematically hunted/herded through the forest by a killer who uses elaborate traps and psychological warfare.
The pacing steadily builds toward a rain-soaked climax that ties the killer’s hidden origin story to the main themes of trauma and loss. And Pitfall does a terrific job of using its atmospheric setting, including the dense woods and the cover of darkness, to foster paranoia. The gruesome deaths – immolation, an axe decapitation, and a disturbing sequence involving a bear trap – cater directly to the core horror audience’s expectations without insulting their intelligence.
Pitfall occasionally lapses into genre conventions, mostly involving the four as they search for Scott. But it does a decent job of balancing those moments with surprisingly clever survival tactics.
The cast delivers strong performances, conveying a palpable sense of terror. But it’s Randy Couture and Richard Harmon who stand out. Couture is a hulking, formidable physical presence and incredibly effective as a menacing psychopath who’s skilled with bows, arrows, and axes. Harmon’s Lars starts off as a cynical, film-major comic relief who complains about granola bars and bears. But as events escalate, Lars transforms into a fierce fighter who won’t abandon his friends. Harmon nails Lars’ sarcastic, dark sense of humor that doesn’t fail him even as he’s fighting for his life.
By anchoring its gruesome kills in the real-world weight of family tragedy, Pitfall delivers both the visceral thrills required of a slasher and a narrative substance that makes the violence hit harder because you actually care about the victims.
GRADE: B
Release Date: May 29, 2026, limited
Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes
Directed By: James Kondelik
Written By: Victor Rose
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