G.P.S.

An indie horror/thriller that uses the concept of treasure hunting with GPS units. The premise is interesting: Instead of the expected money, the hiking group finds a buried coffin with scary Polaroid photos and plea for help. It's who-dunnit movie that's more silly than LOL funny, but the light-heartedness makes it fun. Except for one scene, it's pretty mild violence and not very slasher-esque even though the setup feels like maybe it should have been a slasher film.

This movie kept me on the edge of my chair. The video quality gave it a feeling of reality which added to the suspense. The chemistry between the characters drew you into their history together from the beginning. This continued throughout the movie aside from one scene. The setting was beautiful. It was not the kind of movie I would normally see, but overall, the music was placed well with the drama, the dialog rarely faltered, and the stunts were well done. I have not seen a lot of independent films, so I'm not certain if the unique qualities of this movie are similar to other independents. It challenged my expectations of what a movie "has to be," and gave me something new.

I saw this on DVD, which means I got to see the Behind the Scenes Bonus Features that go in depth into the making of this movie. There are more than 2 hours of special features.I didn't intend to watch them all, but they pulled me in so much I ended up watching most of them. After seeing those, I have a real appreciation of what the filmmakers went through to get their first feature made on a tiny budget, so I give them a '7.'

The movie itself is really fun, but it's not flawless. It had me laughing out loud at a couple of the funny characters, and there were some very suspenseful scenes in the second half of the movie. I think the biggest problem is that the suspense doesn't really start up until halfway through. The first half almost plays like a comedy, the second half like a thriller. If you know that going in, you can like it anyway. But it is a little disconcerting to the viewer as the tone changes dramatically at the midway point.

I'm glad they embellished GPS treasure hunting (or geocaching) to make it highly competitive, otherwise it wouldn't have been exciting. People are literally racing each other to get to the next hidden cache. There are some beautiful locations and some cool stunts. Overall, a really good first effort, and from what the director, producer, etc. said in the bonus features, it's obvious they learned a lot in the process to take with them to their next movie.

After agreeing to participate in a GPS-based treasure-hunt, a group of friends out in the woods find themselves targeted by a vicious killer with a personal vendetta against one of the members of the group, forcing them to find a way of stopping them before they succumb to his murderous antics.

This was a decidedly unspectacular slasher, without a whole lot to really get worked up over here, with the worst part being that there's not a whole lot of opportunity to really ratchet up the excitement level due to the way it presents itself. With the majority of the first hour taken up by the group's feelings with each other, the game-play and dealing with being out in the woods with something creepy lurking around the fringes of everything without doing anything about it, the film is just barely watchable during this half since we get very little indication we're watching a slasher, and it's pretty boring before it switches over in the last act with some decent stalking, a few decidedly-fun kills and the payoff to the half-hearted build-up being fine if drawn-out somewhat, but overall this one just isn't all that great.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and Nudity.

I normally refer to user write-ups and use them to assist me in choosing a fun film to watch. Sometimes the reviews are spot-on, and sometimes it almost seems like someone has coerced their friends to write up a bunch of misleading and plain false reviews to artificially inflate the films review score. I think this may have been done here. If that is not that case, then this is one Ed Wood fan that has found a film that he is just too picky for...

Daniel Magill's character, Andrew, while seeming somewhat whiny stands above the rest of the cast that come across as amateur actors putting together a college film during a long weekend. I am sure they will improve upon their craft as they garner experience, and I wish them all the luck. However, it's painfully obvious here that they have a long way to go.

This is one of those movies that reminds you of the worst of the "Scream" series of movies, just without the polish. If you go by the some of these other "reviews" here, you will be misled. This movie is an absolute turkey. Reader beware!