The War on Terror Just Got a Bit More Terrifying

From the “better late than never” file, hey, we’re at war! We should make some films about it!

After years of workmanlike to middling to non-existent cinematic responses to the “war on terror” and the (entirely separate and mostly unrelated) war in Iraq, 2008 is finally seeing some more adventurous films on those subjects. There are, of course, some traditional films, including the soldiers’ stories of Stop Loss and Errol Morris’ Abu Ghraib documentary Standard Operating Procedure.

But there’s also Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, a stoner comedy that has been polarizing critics with its political (or apolitical?) message. Super Size Me director and star Morgan Spurlock, who has a knack for clever film names, has returned with Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? and intends to answer just that question. Bulletproof Salesman, a documentary, is entirely devoted to a war profiteer selling armored cars to international forces in Iraq.

Regardless of their formats or politics, none of these films could easily be dismissed as cookie cutter approaches to the United States’ overseas conflicts. But one of the most distinctive yet may still be The Objective. It deals with a small Special Forces group that heads into the Afghan mountains and find that there are more than just Taliban hooligans waiting for them. More, as in freaky supernatural goings-on.

So what? So, it’s directed by Dan “Blair Witch Project” Myrick. It’s admirable that Myrick stuck to his guns and turned down the lucrative offers he received after finishing Blair Witch. He has tried to get several projects off the ground since directing the massive hit, but hasn’t had much luck. This is the first one that’s put cinematic rubber to pavement, but it’s terribly risky. This movie is about a small group of people going into a remote area and experiencing increasingly bizarre phenomena. It is, well, in danger of being dismissed as Blair Witch in a new setting, which would have some severe consequences for Myrick’s directing career.

The movie played the Tribeca Film Festival this past weekend and should get a limited release soon. The trailer looks genuinely interesting, but, as alluded above, in a far too Blair–Witch-ish fashion. The saving grace may be that the film is not shot in BW’s handheld style, which is the most obvious legacy of the BWP. There’s also a fine line the film will have to walk between genuinely eerie Muslim gothic and zanily exploitive turbanphobia – how the movie does or does not goofily mystify the Afghan highlands could largely dictate its success.

Tags: Afghanistan, Blair Witch Project, Dan Myrick, Iraq, The Objective, War on Terror