Panic Fest 2026: Pitfall (2026) Review

Director: James Kondelik

Notable Cast: Alex Essoe, Marshall Williams, Richard Harmon, Jordan Claire Robbins, Matt Hamilton, Randy Couture

 

Within the first ten or fifteen minutes of Pitfall, there are literally three instances of deer being killed. Now, granted, one of them is in a hallucinatory state for one of its lead characters, but it certainly set the stage for how I was going to watch this film.  Cause that’s certainly a silly choice, and I kind of appreciate it cause it does set the stage for what one can expect from the two-tone approach that Pitfall is using as its concept. 

 

Despite perhaps hitting the hammer on the head about the film’s ‘nature can be dangerous’ themes that are layered into the two genres that it's mish-mashing together - the survival film and the slasher, Pitfall is certainly a film that has a lot more going for it in the undertones than what I expected. This is the two-tone approach that director James Kondelik is aiming for with this film.  

 

When your plotline is about a brother and sister who take their significant others, and one tagalong friend, to go on a three-day camping trip through the woods and stumble into a killer, the film could have easily just gone the way of the 80s slasher. Pitfall certainly holds that baseline concept as its foundation. Just look at this badass poster above. There’s a love for the slasher in its DNA that cannot be overlooked. The manner that the film tries its best to create creative and gory kills in its setting - whether it's slashed throats, the titular Pitfalls with giant spikey branches, arrow piercing, a wild spiked wooden bludgeon to someone’s face, or a very intense tent fire, there’s definitely an old school slasher vibe going on with this film even if some of the CGI comes off as patchy. There’s a secondary “plot” featuring two women on the run from the killer, which has no real merit in the film outside of allowing it to have a bigger body count, and what’s more old school slasher than that?

 

While it takes a while for the film to really start utilizing its nameless antagonist, played by an almost unrecognizable Randy Couture, once he comes into play, the film does pick up steam. I’m not sure that there needed to be a flashback for the villain and he certainly seems to be the spiritual successor to Jason Vorhees as a feral man hunting campers, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy the vibe that Couture was bringing here as the slasher killer with random teleportation abilities. 

 

However, that’s just one of the two tones Pitfall uses. We now live in a modern horror world, and it’s just not a horror film without a bit of character growth through trauma and thematic layers. For this one, it’s the two siblings, played by Marshall Williams and horror mainstay Alex Essoe, as they cope with the loss of their parents in a tragic deer-caused car accident. There’s plenty of flashback work here and tons of hallucinatory stuff for Williams’ Scott character, particularly when he ends up falling into one of the pitfalls after the first act. There are a couple of significant others for them, but they mostly serve as sounding boards for their character growth, and a random friend character who adds a bit of levity, played by Richard Harmon (who some may remember from his incredible moments in Final Destination Bloodlines last year). Unfortunately, despite some decent acting by Williams and Essoe, the writing for this trauma-based character growth isn’t as effective as the movie’s slasher elements and can feel abrasive at times. It never finds its footing in getting their stories and growth to pop in the final act when the big battle with the slasher killer comes to a head.

 

The film's themes around the danger of nature - whether it's the elements like fire or rain, animals like the previously mentioned suicidal deer or wolves that never quite play out in the plot, or, in a more interesting move, the feral nature of the villain who grew up lost in the woods, also don’t quite find a way to tie into everything that the slasher plot has going on. It’s almost like the modern horror character work, the slasher structure, and its theming are all working in parallel rather than intertwining, leaving something to be desired in the end. 

 

All in all, Pitfall is fun. It’s got some silly moments of slasher goodies, particularly in some of the gory death scenes or the final act, and there’s some serious attempts from the performances of Essoe and Williams to elevate their character arcs above its thinner scripting. Yet the film doesn’t fully come together as it attempts to, and while credit should be given for effort, Pitfall ultimately tumbles under the weight of some of its material and a lack of focus on what is working. Slasher or survival-horror fans will find some solid moments here, and I do recommend it to them. 

Written By Matt Malpica Reifschneider