PLOT: After a young man gets separated from his friends in the woods, he falls in to a 10 foot deep pit of spikes, impaling him through his leg and leaving him trapped. He quickly learns that his fall was not an accident.
REVIEW: Pitfall is about to make its festival debut at ScreamFest and I was lucky enough to get an early screener. This featured some unfinished FX work, amongst a few other incomplete things, so I’ll try to not let that affect how I view the film overall.
The story follows a group of friends heads out for a 3 day hike, only for one of them to fall into a deep hole filled with spikes. What seems like an accident, ends up being something much more harrowing as a hunter is after them and will stop at nothing to kill them. A pretty basic premise but one that could provide plenty of fun deaths and tension. Unfortunately, it just tries to do too much instead of focusing on what works. From strange narrative choices, where dramatic beats that we already know happened are used to accentuate the big finale, to a random subplot that goes nowhere, it makes for a strange experience.
Final Destination: Bloodline‘s Richard Harmon is one of the only interesting characters, as the actor just brings a natural charisma to the role. Everyone else is just kind of there. They all feel dispensable and aren’t given much personality. Even Alexandra Essoe, who I absolutely love, has an extremely frustrating character to portray. In the friend group are two siblings, and there’s a lot of drama around the death of their parents, which occurred while they were heading to a similar hike. It has potential but it quickly moves to the point of absurdity. I get that it was a traumatic event but it
Randy Couture stars as The Hunter, and he’s practically Jason Voorhees with how violent he is. Though he sounds a bit like Freddy Krueger once he actually starts talking. He also makes quick work of anyone who would even be the slightest bit of help. It’s a pretty simple role for Couture, and his stature works well for it. Too bad they feel like they need to explain The Hunter’s origins, but only doing so in a very minute way. It’s like they weren’t sure if they wanted him to be a slasher villain or some hermit in the woods who likes to kill people. There are so many mixed messages.
I was also very confused by the secondary plot, which involved a second group running away from the hunter in the woods. It really just feels like an excuse to have some more deaths, and it feels straight out of a slasher movie. None of the characters are developed, and they’re just there to run and hide from the Hunter. There are some pretty cool practical deaths throughout. I really liked how they pulled most of those off. But anything else just feels hampered by a sloppy story.
Pitfall is all over the place narratively, switching between dream sequences and secondary plots to an absurd extent. Had it just stuck to being a story about this group of friends being hunted down by a crazy hunter then it would have gone a lot further. But as is, it feels like it’s simply trying to do too much. This would have been a much more satisfying experience if it had just stuck to a more basic experience. As is, it’s easily forgettable.
Pitfall is playing at ScreamFest on October 15th.
