Anytime I hear about a new horror film, no matter what it is, I will typically at least give it a chance. When I noticed that WarHunt boasted both Mickey Rourke and Jackson Rathbone among its cast, my interest was immediately piqued. The horrors of war are inherently awful, and rarely do they need to be bolstered by a scary narrative. When the weird concoction of war genre meets horror genre clicks just right, the audience is rewarded with great movies like Overlord, Starship Troopers, and even Pan’s Labyrinth. I would hesitate to call anything about WarHunt great; however, I had a really great time with this film.
It is 1945, and a military cargo plane goes down. Its ten man crew vanishes, along with so-called “sensitive material.” Major Johnson (Mickey Rourke) sends in a squad of brave soldiers to retrieve this material, deep in the German black forest. This, being a horror film and all, how easy is it to guess the supernatural connection? Weird symbols, a creepy pale woman, poison gas, paranoia, and a weird intercepted transmission babbling about “the Tree of Life”—these soldiers are about to be put to the ultimate test. Also on the chessboard are the Nazis, hungry to uncover the secret contents before anyone else can get to it…
A plethora of problems exist here if one really wants to get nitpicky about them. Mickey Rourke’s Major Johnson seems fully disconnected from the main narrative for the majority of the runtime. The lighting in the darker scenes can make it extremely difficult to figure out what the hell is going on. Jackson Rathbone’s Walsh is content wandering around reciting Greek mythology. But what works here, really works. It is just a ridiculous blast.
The climax is where WarHunt really excels. It blends the disparate storylines together (presumably taking advantage of a limited time in having Rourke on set), before becoming fun and super silly. Once our team arrives at a massive windmill, all bets are off. I would recommend WarHunt mainly for the seasoned genre fan looking for an injection of humor in their horrors.
WarHunt opens the Witch’s Archive for one’s viewing pleasure when it comes to theaters and VOD on Friday, January 21st.
