Pitfall
There's no climbing out.
At a Glance
| Title | Pitfall |
| Genre | Horror / Thriller (survival, backwoods slasher) |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Year | 2026 |
| Runtime | Feature |
| Format | Digital, 2.39:1, 5.1 surround |
| Director | James Kondelik |
| Producers | Alex Bogomolov, Wai Sun Cheng |
| International sales | Voltage Pictures |
| US theatrical release | May 29, 2026, AMC Theatres |
| Festivals | Screamfest LA 2025, Panic Fest 2026 |
The story
After a young man gets separated from his friends in the woods, he falls into a 10-foot pit of spikes that impales his leg and traps him. He quickly learns the fall was not an accident, but the opening move in a deadly hunt. He has to survive the elements and reach his friends before they fall too.
Five friends head into the wilderness for what was supposed to be a healing camping trip. Within hours, Scott is at the bottom of a spiked pit with a wound he can't fix and a tape recorder for company. Above ground, his sister, his girlfriend and his friends start to realize they are being stalked by something that has done this many times before. Pitfall is a primal, slow-tightening survival horror about a hunt the prey is already losing.
Full synopsis
Years ago, a young mother carrying her toddler son tried to escape her abusive husband through the dark woods. She fell into a ten-foot pit of spikes and died there. The boy was left crying beside her body as the men who ambushed them walked away.
In the present day, Scott Williams is still grieving the loss of his parents in a car accident, an accident his sister Ashley quietly blames him for. To rebuild what's left of their family, Scott convinces Ashley to come on a camping trip together, the kind they used to do as kids. He brings his girlfriend Gwen. Ashley brings Charlie, an alpha outdoorsman who is also the father of the baby she has not told anyone about. Their friend Lars rounds out the group as the reluctant fifth wheel.
The forest turns on them quickly. They are tracked by a hooded hunter who blends into the trees and has rigged the terrain with trip-wires, snares and deadly mechanisms built over decades. Separated from the others, Scott crashes into a hidden pit and is impaled through the leg on a buried spike. With little water, no signal and a tape recorder as his only witness, he begins to document what he believes are his final hours.
Above him, the group fractures. Charlie's bravado collapses. Ashley's pregnancy becomes a liability. Gwen tries to hold them together. Lars, the one nobody bet on, starts to step up. When Lars's camera footage is left in the pit beside Scott, the survivors realize the hunter is choosing them one at a time, and that they are inside his game.
To get out alive they have to stop being prey, and become the thing the hunter has been waiting fifty years to meet.
Director's statement
Pitfall sits in a tradition I love: backwoods horror where the wilderness is the second antagonist. Wrong Turn, The Final Terror, Prey. I wanted a film where the audience can feel the weight of the pack on the characters' shoulders, the cold of the ground at night, and the specific dread of realizing the worst thing in the woods is something that has been waiting for you longer than you have been alive.
The hunter is not a supernatural monster. He is the boy from the opening, grown up wrong, shaped by what was done to him. That gives the film a moral spine: the cycle of violence is the real pit, and the only way out is to refuse to repeat it. We shot in the Pacific Northwest because it gives that cycle a landscape, dense, ancient, unforgiving, and the camera doesn't have to do much work to feel oppressive.
The goal was a film that earns its scares the hard way: character, geography and time, and a third act that hurts.
- James Kondelik, DirectorPrincipal cast
- Randy Couture Six-time UFC champion and Hall of Famer. Film: The Expendables 1-3, Hijack, The Scorpion King 2, Setup. Couture brings a physical, lived-in menace to a character who has been alone in the woods for decades.
- Richard Harmon Best known as John Murphy on the CW's The 100 (seven seasons) and most recently as Erik Campbell in Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025). Selects: If I Stay, I Still See You, Grave Encounters 2.
- Alexandra Essoe Lead actress in the cult horror Starry Eyes, Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep, and The Pope's Exorcist opposite Russell Crowe. Selects: Midnighters, Tales of Halloween.
- Marshall Williams Glee, The Ice Road opposite Liam Neeson, How to Build a Better Boy. Canadian leading-man presence with a singing and dance background that gives him the physicality the role demands.
- Jordan Claire Robbins The Umbrella Academy (Grace Hargreeves), See No Evil feature lead, The Boys. Toronto-born, working steadily in genre and prestige.
- Matt Hamilton Lead in the thriller Murder for Sale. Vancouver-based, action-trained, building a horror filmography.
James Kondelik
James Kondelik is a writer-director who started in the cutting room at twenty-one and moved into directing in 2013. He has edited 86 projects, including Mindcage (John Malkovich, Martin Lawrence) and Lights Out (Frank Grillo), and directed twelve features and shorts, including SyFy's Airplane vs Volcano and Dam Sharks, and the indie horror Behind The Walls, which played theaters worldwide. He recently sold the story for the shark thriller CHUM, now in development at Lionsgate.
Selected directing credits: Behind The Walls, Airplane vs Volcano, Dam Sharks, Malibu Dan: The Family Man, Restoration.
Produced by
- Producer Alex Bogomolov Vancouver-based independent producer. Ruthless Bastards (2025), Pitfall (2026), with Lookout in development. Background in business and finance, ran companies before moving into film, and produces with the same discipline: transparent budgets, weekly cost reports, no surprises at delivery.
- Producer Wai Sun Cheng Asian-Canadian filmmaker. Came up through VFX on Blade Runner 2049, Fast and Furious, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Once Upon a Time. Producer of Ruthless Bastards and Pitfall. Selected for cinematography at the Leo Awards, Los Angeles Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards.
How it was made
Pitfall was shot in British Columbia. The Pacific Northwest rainforest plays the unnamed wilderness. The crew built practical traps, in-camera gore, and a real ten-foot spiked pit. The hunter's costume was designed to let Randy Couture disappear into the forest between cuts.
It sits between the contained survival horror of Prey (2022) and the mechanics of classic backwoods slashers, Wrong Turn (2003) and The Final Terror (1983).
Festivals & release
Screamfest LA 2025, festival premiere. Panic Fest 2026, North American genre platform. US theatrical release May 29, 2026 at AMC Theatres. International rollout is handled by Voltage Pictures.
Coverage
EPK, stills & posters
The electronic press kit carries the poster, key art and production stills. Additional formats and hi-res assets on request.