I may be in the minority here, but seeing the words 'From the makers of the Blair Witch Project' emblazoned across a DVD cover piques my interest.

I know the deep-in-the-woods shocker has its fair share of critics (and don't even mention the sequel) but as far as I'm concerned, the original knew exactly what it was and delivered on that in spades.

And, less we forget, the inspired grass-roots marketing campaign pretty much changed the way films are pushed to us cinema-goers nowadays.

So I'm willing to give director Daniel Myrick some slack, which is why I plunked down some of my hard-earned cash to sit through the straight-to-DVD effort The Objective recently.

Only just surfacing on DVD in this country, the film was actually shot (in Morocco) and churned out in 2008.

The premise is interesting enough, and fits into the realm of military horror so well tread by the likes of R-Point in recent times.

In fact, you could make a strong case that the film isn't even 'horror' at all, but more a sort of supernatural thriller with a bit of gore thrown in for good measure.

The idea is that the CIA have got wind of some dodgy-goings on (dodgy as in weird) in Afghanistan, and decide to send an operative into the country, along with a crack team of special ops guys, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

There are nods to sci-fi, horror, and even some attempted discourse on American military intervention as the film trundles along at a very, very sedate pace.

As to be expected, things go very wrong for the motley crew of soldiers and they end up being picked off by an unseen force.

All this builds to a climax featuring the CIA operative (Jonas Ball) and the supernatural beings which is likely to excite, confuse or simply annoy in equal measure.

So – is it any good?

Well, yes and no.

Yes in that the film does try something different – as I mentioned above I am a bit of a sucker for a good combat chiller, whether it be the likes of the US Civil War (The Box), World War I (Deathwatch) or Vietnam (R-Point) – and setting the movie against the backdrop of paranoia and conspiracy of the 'war against terror' is a neat touch.

The acting is solid, if not spectacular, and the location shooting is stunning – the setting is so desolate that the terrain almost becomes a character in itself.

But my gosh is this film slow – there were actually times when I thought I must have hit the slow-frame option on my remote, such was the pace of the thing.

That is all well and good if you find a connection, or for that matter care about, the characters involved, but it proves a bit of a death sentence if you just couldn't care less.

And as for the ending, well it came across as one of those 'bolted on to try and provoke some sort of talking-point' type deals.

Overall then this squarely falls into the 'fatally flawed' category, but I would still recommend it to those who like their genre cinema infused with a bit of thought.

Movie Nerd is always on the lookout for more military horrors. Do you have any to recommend? If so, let us know below.