My quick rating - 5.2/10. Pitfall wastes absolutely no time throwing people into holes. We kick things off with a woman and her daughter sprinting down a lonely forest road while an old pickup truck gives chase. The opening credits are still rolling when I spot Randy Couture in the cast, so naturally I'm expecting somebody to tap out.
Mom and daughter duck into the woods, think they've finally escaped, and then a deer demonstrates why you should never trust random patches of forest floor. Straight into a spike pit it goes. If you suddenly had flashbacks to the old Pitfall! video game, you're not alone.
Of course, the truck never actually left. Mom's exit from the movie is delivered with satisfying practical effects, and the daughter ends up trapped in the pit herself.
Then we jump to daylight, where a completely different family is cruising along in an SUV, playing Never Have I Ever. You know you're watching a horror movie because they're smiling and having a good time. That's basically signing your own death warrant. Those same inconsiderate deer interrupt the road trip, and we meet Scott (Marshall Williams), who wakes from a nightmare revealing he was part of that opening family. He's now travelling with his sister Ashley (Alexandra Essoe) and their own families.
Translation: the body count bus has officially arrived.
From there, Pitfall settles comfortably into an old-school slasher groove. The killer isn't interested in sprinting after victims. They stalk slowly, methodically, and possess that familiar "you can knock me down but you certainly can't keep me there" durability that us horror fans know all too well.
The effects are mostly a decent mix of practical gore with CGI blood. For the majority of the runtime, the digital enhancements don't really stand out in a bad way. Unfortunately, once the rain arrives, so does some CGI blood that looks like it snuck in from a much cheaper movie. It doesn't completely ruin the scene, but it definitely caught my attention.
There is one extended dramatic sequence that had me scratching my head. Without spoiling anything, characters suddenly know a truck is coming and rush to get out of its way...despite having absolutely no logical reason to know it was approaching. Maybe someone unlocked horror movie clairvoyance for thirty seconds. It felt like the script needed the moment more than the story did.
There is a little sting at the end of Pitfall that can either serve as a last scare or as a hint for making a sequel out of it, whatever director James Kondelik decides to do.
At the end of the day, Pitfall isn't reinventing the slasher genre, but that doesn't mean it is a bad flick. It delivers traps, spikes, a persistent killer, ample gore for us horror fans, and just enough goofy moments. It's the kind of movie where you stop questioning why people keep wandering into obvious danger and instead follow right behind.
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