Daniel Myrick, one of the Blair Witch director/writers, writes and directs again here, which helps explain how a fairly thin project like this one can unfold at such a controlled and interesting pace. "The Objective" is a feature in the small fun sub-class of adventurous horror movies, often made with micro-dollar budgets and a heavy reliance on shooting in the dark, in which scientists and/or soldiers set out to explore strange manifestations loose in the deserts or mountains or caves of enemy territory.

I like these films in general, so I may be under-critical. They seem fitting to me, an appropriate response to our ongoing American global military campaigns. Our explorers and warriors thrash, largely un-clued (and eventually unglued) and doing their best and worst along the way, through unfamiliar terrain and alien cultures. They fight against threats they don't understand and sometimes don't see. Their numbers dwindle. There are mysteries in the ragged lands, and warning signs they don't know how to read.

It feels overtly political to me. How you choose to read the subtext may depend on what you bring to the screen with you. The American strike team, led by a quiet CIA operative, is looking for something out in the desert. There's an ambush, there are lights in the night. The obvious guy dies first - don't be a father-to-be in a combat mission, it's like wearing a red tunic - and things begin to unravel. Where are the bodies of the raiders they shoot down in the canyon? Where's the helicopter? Who's on the radio? Is anyone on the radio after all, actually? They head for an oasis to resupply and reconsider, and the far side of the hills is not the land they expected.

On a couple of occasions the men pour out a remarkable amount of firepower against invisible enemies, or maybe it's just the air at night. In a creepy and clever move, they deploy for encounters with the audio track, reacting to the sounds of events that don't ever manifest (and save tons off the budget). This movie is spare and modest and made with care. As the soldiers fade and fall, there is much made of them: they are heroes, they are patriots, their country is proud. They die, uncounted, in the strange desert.