Caching out

The hunt is over. There is no place left to hide. With tears streaming down her face and her voice quivering with fear, Kathy Gardiner begs her killer to spare her life in an emotional scene from the upcoming movie Geohunt, a low-budget independent horror flick that recently wrapped up in Baton Rouge.

Gardiner, who has done everything from cold calling to selling real estate to modeling, can now add acting to her resume. A 2005 winner of Maxim magazine’s Hometown Hotties contest, the 24-year-old St. Amant beauty was discovered by writer/director John Land on the popular Web site Model Mayhem.

“Winning that has gotten me in the door in so many different places,” Gardiner says. “I don’t know where I would be in modeling and acting if I didn’t have that.”

Gardiner joined the cast of veteran Los Angeles actors Chad Guerrero, Tristan Wright and Andrea Monier for a small role in the film, but her early screen test wowed Land and secured her the lead.

Geohunt is the story of four friends fighting for their lives in the oft exciting, rarely dangerous world of geocaching, a grown-up version of hide-and-seek using global positioning systems (GPS) devices, clues and coordinates. With the assistance of the Internet, geocaching has turned total strangers from all over the world into a tight-knit, fast-growing community of adventure seekers.

In 2000, with advances in GPS technology, geocaching began with a simple idea: hide a container in the woods and note the coordinates with a GPS unit. Anyone can join in the game and search for caches in their area or in far-flung corners of the world.

In Geohunt a twisted killer, known only as the “operator,” sets a trap for four friends in search of a cache. Andrew (Guerrero), Taryn (Monier), Dallas (Wright) and Reese (Gardiner) are Internet celebrities of sorts and are targeted for their notoriety on Web sites like YouTube and MySpace. The treasure hunters become the hunted, and their days as thrill-seeking adventurers turn ultimately to survival as the “operator” orchestrates a killing spree with not one, but two killers.

Broadcasting their struggle on the Internet in a warped reality show, the operator pits his victims against Web voyeurs who either love these wannabe celebs or love to hate them.

At the helm of the project is California-based Fade to Black Films, along with Louisiana Media Services and Louisiana Media Productions. Land, a Louisiana transplant from Los Angeles was brought in for the film project. He recently finished second unit directing on Brain Dead, a film by seasoned horror director Kevin Tenney.

“John is the best director,” Gardiner says. “I expect to see him somewhere big. He knows what he’s doing with the camera, and he’s just brilliant.”

At 27 years old, this is Land’s first foray as a writer and director with complete control over the artistic sensibilities of a film. A high school dropout, he’s worked in practically every facet of the film industry from production assistant to gaffer. When his big break comes he’ll know the ins and outs, making his vantage point from the director’s chair better.

“Only something like one out of 1,000 films succeed because there are so many artists out there all striving for the same thing,” Land says. “If I wanted to make movies for YouTube, I would make movies for YouTube. But I don’t want to do that. I want to create good quality films and use my ability as a filmmaker to do it. But until I get there, I’m just so glad to be a working professional in this business in whatever capacity I can, and I try not to lose sight of that. I hope that one day I’ll be directing big, big movies and won’t ever have to worry about a regular paycheck again.”

Land came up with the idea to combine elements of the Internet thrill-seeking game geocaching with the traditional horror flick formula while hiking in the Mojave Desert.

“My girlfriend at the time and I literally tripped over this box in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “And, in the box were notes and letters and little toys and stuff inviting you to play this game, and it was the weirdest thing to me that out in the middle of nowhere while we were hiking there was this thing that all these people have come to. I thought this would be really creepy to have someone use this as a tool to lure people into a bad situation out in the middle of nowhere alone.”

The entire film was shot in 12 days at the Global Wildlife Center in Robert, and in the old King Hotel in downtown Baton Rouge using an entirely digital format and with gear that mean not having to wait for dailies. And big savings. With a budget of approximately $500,000 this type of high-definition technology is usually reserved for big-budget productions.

“This may be a small project, but because of its technological innovation, it has future implications that go beyond the film itself,” says Oak Porcelli, line producer on Geohunt. “The fact that it is being done here in Baton Rouge is a boost to not only the Louisiana film community, but to the independent filmmaking community at large.”

Geohunt will be released later this year directly to DVD through self distribution on the Internet. Land plans to enter it in several independent film festivals including Fright Fest, England’s premiere fantasy and horror film festival held in August. myspace.com/geohuntthemovie