In Pitfall, director James Kondelik delivers a laborious and bombastic survival horror set in a forest where a maniacal woodsman, played by former UFC fighter Randy Couture, preys on a group of irritating victims. The film, now available on digital platforms and coming to DVD and Blu-ray on 20 July, follows a familiar template: a posse of supremely irritating characters ripe for the culling.
Plot and Characters
The story centers on Ashley (Alexandra Essoe) and her brother Scott (Marshall Williams), who return to the forest where their parents died in a car accident after hitting a deer. They are accompanied by their partners Charlie (Matt Hamilton) and Gwen (Jordan Claire Robbins), along with the carping Lars (Richard Harmon). Their outdoorsman credentials are quickly exposed when, fleeing from wolves, Scott falls into a spiked hunting pit—the very type he had warned everyone to avoid hours earlier.
Kondelik, co-writing with Victor Rose, attempts a fractured narrative structure. A prologue shows a seemingly unrelated mother and child in danger, and the main story intersperses the group's search for Scott with another manhunt and flashbacks to the parental accident. One death is revealed via a camcorder recording, sadistically left for Scott to watch at the bottom of the pit. However, this profusion of perspectives is haphazard, only occasionally adding force to the main storyline, such as when Scott is flooded with guilty memories.
Themes and Tone
Pitfall plays like the cast of Friends straying into Deliverance. The film ladles out schmaltz at every opportunity—amid gratuitous decapitations, gougings, and a centipede burrowing into someone's leg wound. The overblown finale unites family therapy and gorehound strands as the demonic hunter does his atavistic worst, while characters compete to sacrifice themselves for each other, vocalizing their need to do so. It resembles a Scary Movie franchise splatterhouse take on Last of the Mohicans.
The film's long, heavily signposted melodrama trail includes Ashley's alcoholism, her estrangement from Scott and Gwen, and her newly discovered pregnancy. Kondelik takes every opportunity to pile on more sentiment, even after the most gruesome moments.
Conclusion
Despite its attempts at depth through multiple perspectives and flashbacks, Pitfall remains a laborious and bombastic thriller that prioritizes gore over genuine tension. The irritating characters and heavy-handed melodrama make it a forgettable entry in the survival horror genre.
