Treasure Hunt

Anybody, like me, who's familiar with the work of Jim Wynorski shouldn't be surprised by the movie's schlocky, low-budget quality. Wynorski's a veteran of schlocky B-movies. But I found this one to be more dull than his previous efforts. And, to be honest, the lack of gratuitous nudity was disappointing as well. Hey, you don't watch a Wynorski movie for the quality. You watch it for its cheesy entertainment value and the frequent, gratuitous shots of busty babes. "Treasure Hunt" has some nudity, but no more than you would see in an average Rated-R movie. This is no "Bare Wench Project 2." The acting, as you would expect, is awful. The only halfway decent actors are Melissa Brasselle and Samantha Phillips--two of Wynorski's regulars. And the movie sure as hell doesn't serve as a biting satire on the reality show craze. I really didn't care about any of the characters, so the fact that each of them were getting killed off had no effect on me. I didn't enjoy the movie much, but I do look forward to listening to the audio commentary, since he usually does provide amusing commentaries. Unlike most B-movie directors, he maintains a good sense of humor about his work.

A lush deserted tropical island...a scavenger hunt for 10 million dollars and, best of all, a bevy of busty babes. What could be bad?....Leave it to Diamond Jim Wynorski.

In fairness, this one is a cut above Wynorski's typically lazy, low budget efforts. Treasure Hunt is filmed (or videotaped) in darkly "comic"semi-Mockumentary style, and the seemingly improvised script is not entirely witless. On the other hand, Jim Wynorski is no Christopher Guest, and only a few of the credit sequence out-takes are truly funny.

I wish The Blair Witch Project was never made. The surprising success gave license to a new school of motion sickness film making, which is showcased here. All too often, the camera appears to be mounted to a pendulum on a merry-go-round. It never stands still. The movie does deliver on some of the promised T&A (actually, a lot more T then A...the camera angles, such as they are, generally stay above the waist...thong bikini fans will have to settle for a meager glance or two). There is definitely some "sightseeing" potential here, but it's often like watching from a roller coaster. I got a headache in a hurry.

The concept of typically obnoxious reality show contestants (i.e. "Survivor") bumping one another off may be a lot of laughs, but you won't find too many here. I rate this a 4/10.