NOW ON VOD! The deep, dark woods run thick with blood in director James Kondelik’s Pitfall, the story of a group of campers who run afoul of the murderous loner who calls the wilderness home. Bones will break, blood will burst forth with inexplicable power, and you will forever think twice about going off-trail.
It all starts with trauma. Siblings Ashley (Alexandra Essoe) and Scott (Marshall Williams) have become estranged in the years since a traffic accident killed their parents. Ashley in particular struggles, her survivor’s guilt mixing with resentment of Scott, who seems less affected than she, but in an attempt at thawing out relations, they, along with their partners Charlie (Matt Hamilton) and Gwen (Jordan Claire Robbins), head into the woods for a three-day hike. Also along: Ashley and Scott’s surly, fluent-in-sarcasm childhood pal Lars (Richard Harmon).
Babbling brooks and beautiful foliage provide a serene backdrop, but it all soon becomes a desperate fight for survival as a hooded stranger begins hunting the group, armed with knives, axes, arrows, and homemade traps. Who will win – five urbanites or one gruff woodsman?
“…it all soon becomes a desperate fight for survival as a hooded stranger begins hunting the group, armed with knives, axes, arrows, and homemade traps.”
Kondelik gets creative with the ways a human body can be cut, pierced, ripped, and mutilated, and liberties are taken with the physics of a traumatized body. The sound design by Vaughn Wagner is effusive to the point of comedy at times, like when a spike pierces a character’s leg, and it sounds like the bowels of a stranded whale rupturing.
Pitfall in general holds nothing back. The violence is gratuitous, the intensity never dips below 9/10, and every single cast member gets to do their best horror movie scream. The exuberance isn’t just limited to the thrills, as Kondelik and writer Victor Rose also want to inject some pathos into proceedings.
They choose to do so through Ashley and Scott, who must find time to air out their harbored feelings in between gruesome run-ins with the killer. Pitfall doesn’t need this infusion of emotion, because as with everything else, Kondelik isn’t one for subtlety, and the “moving” moments leap straight into melodrama, suggesting Pitfall takes itself more seriously than it can possibly justify.
Pitfall knows how to do one thing, and it does it well: letting you watch a psycho killer play whack-a-mole with hapless victims using an arsenal of sharp things. You want a rowdy time and an opportunity to wince at the bloody mess it leaves behind – Kondelik and Pitfall provide.
"…holds nothing back..."
